Hang Me in the Morning, Before I See the Sun
by Elwin Ransom
Summary: Half a millennium after the Jedi Civil War, an outcast Jedi led a rebellion against the Republic. He was caught, tried, and died a villain. But he left behind a diary, compiled while imprisoned. It reveals his side of the struggle and the mind of a madman
1. Introduction

**Hang Me in the Morning, Before I See the Sun**

**Introduction**

_The historian gingerly spread out the ancient text. Ink was scrawled hastily, almost chaotically, over the archaic paper. An old document, something hidden away by the Jedi—kept secret. But why? Who wrote it? How old was it? These were the questions that filled the young historian's mind as he lit a dim lamp and sat down to study the documents. One was answered, as he saw the numbers 3519 BBY etched into the parchment. The date was bolder, darker than the text, implying that it had been added later—perhaps much later. He was isolated, alone, in the basement of the archives. And he would find out what this work was, and why it had been hidden for so long. The first lines were almost a shout…_

I am Aetius Glendower.

You, noble reader, will you not judge me like all the others? Stretched before you now is my life story—I, the forsaken, wretch of a human being: the Scourge of the Republic. Yes, I believe that is what they call me now. Locked away in this cell I do not have much contact with the outside world. Only through one of the two guards who rotate guarding my prison do I learn anything. One is stoic and hateful, the other is naïve and sympathetic—but he, kind Oronis, has made this possible. Or perhaps he is too full of pity to deny my pathetic begging.

Vague promises of innocence, pleadings, and he provided me with this pen and paper—I can only write while he watches. The other guard, I do not know his name, would break in here and burn up everything I have done—and I would be powerless to stop him. Not since this accursed sickness has taken hold of my lungs. Forgive me if the scrawls on this paper are at times unreadable…every so often a fit of coughing overrides my will to write. Was I once a powerful Jedi? It does not feel like it.

This pathetic state that I am—it is amazing to me to look back and see that the whole Republic once feared me. _Me_. An outsider, an exiled Jedi from a backwater world about which no one cares. Could I inspire fear among my '"enemies" and loyalty among "allies"? I did not know that I could. But I did. And I fought against the Republic with every iota of my being, because they betrayed me. They betrayed me by supporting the Jedi, those abominations. Those twisted, self-appointed demi-gods—they took from me the one thing I cared about and then left me for dead. No love hath the Jedi—their cold indifference…that is the real enemy.

But I am rambling. I…am sorry, but my rage takes control of my hand and I write without awareness. I may vent and rant in this my biography, but please do not discard it on that account. Allow me to begin again:

I am Aetius Glendower. Yes, the man, the "Sith Lord", and threat to galactic stability; the great enemy of the Republic and destroyer of freedom. Here I wait, in a prison cell within the Republic's maximum-security prisons, for my trial. I suspect I will be dead before long. I am charged with high treason, sedition, conspiracy to undermine the government, and several counts of murder—I don't recall how many. The essence of it remains: I am awaiting only my conviction and then execution. I have heard it said that the Jedi do not kill their prisoners. That may be true, but the Republic does—and I am _their_ prisoner. No one short of the Jedi's fabled Chosen One would be able to extricate me from this tangled mess, and that I do not wish. I just wish that this book finds a reader.

Now, as for you who have found this. I will try my best to hide this book, and hope that it will survive longer than I will. You are undoubtedly a student of history—I can think of no other reason why you would read further than the first four words of this book. Is my name still known? Whatever age in which you live, is my name still reviled? Am I still spat upon and kicked? I would believe so. The only other option would be the sweet tonic of obscurity—that is what I hope for so earnestly. But if I am remembered, please read this book. Please read it…without prejudice.

You will scoff, I do not doubt. I am, after all, a "Sith Lord". Does that render my words meaningless? Are they nothing more than vibrations scratching through the air? I hope they are not. Sith Lord is a title I never chose for myself. It was forced upon me. Forced by the Jedi and their propagandist hounds that run the Republic. All of their enemies are "Sith". It is a clever name, an evil name. And it is most of all historical. If they can link the enemy of the present with the enemy of the past, then they will always have a unified front against him.

And that is why I was defeated, captured, and brought here for trial. But I am not a Sith. I never knew anyone who was. There are no Sith—haven't been for centuries. But that…that is the Republic's best kept secret! If there were no Sith, then the public would turn against the Jedi! They would expose them for what they are—superfluous vassals to their own swelled egos. And…this trial, as with all judgments of the enemies of the Republic, is but a sham. It is not the real truth behind my story, and behind my revolution.

And that is why I am writing this book.

I hope and pray that you who find this are not close-minded. I hope you will find it within your soul, your sense of moral rightness, to read this discourse. You will find nothing in here of the "dark side", for I do not know what that is. I do not know anything about the Force anymore. This was a political battle—nothing more or less. And I lost.

They say that the victors write history. I intend to rectify that error—or at least to try. Listen to my tale and then judge. Who is at fault? Would it be me? In spite of my lonesome, forlorn insisting to the contrary, do I still have only myself to blame? Or are the Jedi equally—If not blatantly more so—culpable? I believe you will be able to discern for yourself. But to make my views clear, I will reiterate them in complete blunt honesty.

The Jedi are swine. A blight upon the galaxy and the rotting heart that sustains the frail and sickly Republic. Give me one hundred more ships and take away the underhanded sleight of those soulless Jedi dogs and you would be looking at a very different world. Take away the treachery of devious and malevolent men like Theodoric and Kalkannis and I would not be in this desperate situation. Perhaps it would be that tyrannical slave driver Gamaliel—the Grandmaster of the Order—locked away within a dingy and depressing cell, hurriedly pasting together his memoirs for the future generations.

Oh, what a difference I could have made…without these deceivers…

---

_Author's Notes: Okay, so here is a new story. I hope this doesn't put anyone off, but it's an original SW piece that has no connection to the games. I wanted to try something new. It's much different than anything I've ever done before, with different perspective, a funky format, and frequent jumping of the timelines. It's been difficult to write, but I decided to post the prologue now and see if there is any reaction to it._

_Oh, and for reference, the title is taken from the movie 3:10 to Yuma. It's a synthesis of two lines from a song that one of the characters sings to taunt Russell Crowe, who's being escorted to his execution._

_Thanks a bunch, everyone._


	2. Beginnings

**Beginnings**

I hope you, my reader, understand how important you are to me. Many of the things I'm going to tell you in my book are things I've never dared utter to anyone. Not even those I considered my friends. I'm…pouring out my soul for you. You are my only hope, my only chance for salvation. It is upon you that my whole life depends. While I may be gone, the truth must be heard. That is your role. You are the judge—the arbiter of my life. You are the most important person in history to me.

Judging my life will be no easy task—indeed, I have trouble doing it myself. Nay…I cannot do it myself. It is not my responsibility. It is yours. I pray you are up to the task.

Just remember…I'm pouring out my whole being into this work…no matter how hard it is.

Now, onto the tale.

Biographies, I think, generally begin with the birth or childhood of the author. For me, I do not remember it—only bits and pieces, faint awareness of something only in the corner of my mind. But like a shadow in a room, if you concentrate on it…it changes. It becomes something else and then you were not sure what it was to begin with. So it is with my childhood. I do not remember my father, though I have a fleeting glimpse of my mother. I was only four when I was taken by the Jedi to join the Order. I remember as I was being escorted out of my home I looked back just once. I saw my mother standing there with a very stoic look on her face. She was grim, unhappy, but completely subservient. And that is it.

I hope my parents are dead. I would not want them to see what has become of me.

I believe I was their only child. Of course I do not know this. But it would probably do the galaxy good if I were the last Glendower to live. Our family name has taken a beating. It is rumored that I am somehow related to a famed Knight who was killed during the great Sith incursion by the Emperor Ardashir about five hundred years ago. Supposedly, the Force flowed through my blood and I am linked to him.

He was a hero, though—I, as you should be able to guess, am not. His name is soured.

This story truly begins three years ago. I was on Coruscant at the time. If you are a historian, you will recognize that this was a politically charged era. Discontent was rampant throughout the Republic. There was real uncertainty in the air, and many were afraid that the fragile trade union would fracture as a result of the strain being put on it. As with most political disputes, the problem was power. The Mid and Outer Rim worlds were tired of playing second fiddle to the rest of the galaxy. It was a problem of representation. It was based purely on population at the time, and that left the Core worlds with all the power in the Senate. Any initiatives or bills proposed or endorsed by the outer worlds were voted down easily by the bigger worlds. Coruscant, obviously. Kuat. Corellia was also a big player. Any of the Core Worlds, to be honest. They ruled everything, and the others were no longer allowing it.

The scene was a huge demonstration on Coruscant. Migrants from the mid and outer worlds were storming the streets of the capital world. There was a large protest. I still remember it vividly.

I was kneeling on the ground in one of the training rooms in the Jedi Temple. I was a newly promoted knight at the time, I think about thirty. Maybe twenty-nine. One of the two. But I sat with my knees pressed into the ground and stared out the huge window at the scene. All throughout the streets before me were the crowds. They had massive signs with their catchphrases on them and limitless numbers, it seemed. The crowd was enormous. The demonstration, I'm sure, rather unnerved the people of Coruscant, as I know that they prefer to go on living as though the rest of the galaxy does not exist.

A tap on my shoulder interrupted my watching.

"Your attention is being diverted again," said a woman's voice from behind me.

I quickly turned around and got up to face her. "Sorry, Master Ianetta," I said to her.

"You do not need to call me master anymore, Aetius," she said, "you are not a padawan."

"Sorry," I said.

Kayra Ianetta had been my master when I was still a padawan. She was a somewhat cold woman, though not intentionally. She had a distant personality, like the Jedi took a confused social outcast and tried to put her in charge of other people. Talking to her usually was awkward, but she was a friend—at least I had thought she was back then. I had trusted her once…she was someone I could confide in. But that was then…my mind is now changed. Her skin was very pale and beginning to wrinkle, and she had very light blonde hair, almost white. Her eyes were dark blue, and they always stared at you with a sort of condescending glint in them.

"Watching the display?" she asked.

I turned around to look at the throngs of people congregating in the streets. I said, "There sure are a lot of them."

"It's best to just ignore them—they'll go away," she said.

"What if the initiative doesn't go their way?" I asked.

Master Ianetta didn't answer that. She just changed the topic, said, "Master Gamaliel sent word for you."

"What? Why?" I asked. I felt like my head was spinning at that point. I hate that man. And he did not have the greatest reputation even then.

"That I do not know," said Ianetta, "you will have to see. I imagine he'll be upstairs near the Council room."

With that, she turned and left. She didn't say goodbye, but that was her style. I did like her, though. She was a good master, though she sort of dominated me in a way that I always felt that I had to address her as a superior, even when we were equals.

I think I probably gulped. Vasilei Gamaliel was not reputed to be the most amiable of Jedi. Rumor had it that he had once killed a padawan of his during a training exercise. We never heard word of the kid again, and there was no official release about his disappearance. We believed that this confirmed our suspicions—Gamaliel had killed him. And besides, he never refuted the rumors. He just glumly went about his business. I think he liked that we were afraid of him.

Frightening man. I never liked him, even in the beginning. If you ask me, I think the bastard did it. Probably guilty of several other crimes from back then as well. He was certainly guilty of some that had not yet come to pass. The smug son of a bitch prob—…

That was a particularly bad coughing fit. I…excuse the sloppiness. When I get riled up the coughs come more easily. This disease…some kind of side effect from radiation sickness…is apparently untreatable. I just have to grin and bear it. That's right, though, I was getting distracted anyway.

I decided then that it was best not to keep the man waiting. I didn't want to end up on his list of dead underlings.

I suppose this is a good time to detail myself, as it would make it easier for you—my noble reader—to envision this scene as it unfolds. I was never very good with prose or description, but I have to make do with what talents I have, however sparing.

Anyway, I am an unremarkable individual. I am of merely average height, and I slouch slightly when I don't think about it. I have gray eyes and short brown hair. Rather thin and scrawny, I do not really project an image of power. The sole exception would be my voice. It is surprisingly deep and probably sounds like it comes from someone a foot taller and wider than myself. Women would find it attractive if…you know…I weren't a Jedi. Jedi women aren't into that kind of thing. They like staring at walls.

But I digress…

I hurried up to the highest floor of the Temple, passing by the multitudes quickly as I was bent on not wasting too much time.

I found Gamaliel meditating in one of the many tiny rooms that ran side-by-side through the main hallway that led to the monstrous staircase that opened into the High Council room. He was kneeling on one of those silly little pedestals, his hands clasped in between his knees as he thought.

He was an intimidating man, but it wasn't from physical appearance. It was his aura. I watched him as he projected uncertainty into my mind, without even knowing it. Though he was not very big, he was a well-built man. Dark skinned with even darker hair. His eyes were very brown, but when I entered they were closed, as he was engrossed in his meditations. Underneath his commanding forehead, his weathered and wrinkled face seemed to be contorted into a natural grimace.

I did not dare disturb him.

At length, he spoke in a very melodic, gravelly drawl that seemed to be infested with an atonal accent that put emphasis on unusual syllables. He said, "Sit down, Knight Glendower."

I obeyed and sat down on a cushioned stool that was opposite of his gloriously majestic pedestal.

"You are wondering why I called you here," said the man. It was worded like a question…but somehow I got the feeling that it wasn't.

"Yes, Master," I said anyway.

With that, he finally opened murky eyes and unfolded his legs. He seemed to glare at me for a moment before continuing. He said, "It is nothing of which you must be overtly concerned."

I nodded.

He continued, "We are getting a transfer from the Academy at Tython. Young girl—presumably your age. She's coming here for her trials."

I waited for Gamaliel to say something extraordinary, and he did not disappoint.

"We are making you her supervisor."

I almost coughed, said, "What—why me?"

Gamaliel seemed irritated at the question. He answered, "It is not some kind of otherworldly task that we ask of you. You will merely look after her as she undergoes her trial. We are considering her for Knighthood. She comes from your home planet Cstephon, so we naturally decided to go with you."

I supposed that this made sense, but I had only recently been promoted to Knight myself. I didn't think I was ready to oversee someone else. Of course, I dared not say this. Rather, I asked, "What kind of trial are we talking about?"

Another condescending look. "I am certain you are intimately familiar with the political strife that is gripping the Republic as of late. A certain criminal—responsible for several small-scale terrorist attacks—has been captured and taken to Herra. Her trial is simply to travel to the rock, apprehend the terrorist, and escort him back here. From there, the authorities will take over."

"That's it?" I asked.

"You would do well not to take such matters lightly," he answered. I knew right then that I detested this man. It wasn't because of rumors or whispered fears. I just straight up didn't like him. Our animosity would…build…over the years.

"His name is Tandior Versimus," he continued. "He's held captive now."

"When will the Knight-to-be get here?"

"Perhaps a few days. You are advised to stay on the premises until then."

Naturally this meant that I would head off to the city my first opportunity. If anything, I had to do it just because _he _recommended the opposite.

Can you not see why I hate this man? He was simply the next in a long line of arrogant and self-absorbed Jedi masters, seeking only to promote their own selfish agenda. The way he spoke, the way he carried himself—it was so obvious. He believed himself to be superior to everyone else. You could tell just by looking at him. If his name is etched into history, I hope you will somehow find a picture of him so you can understand my point. So you could see that gnarled and devious face, see that malicious half-smirk he always wore when speaking to someone he deemed beneath him. It is people like him that caused this whole bloody revolution in the first place.

Alas, I am getting off track again.

After that, I decided to go back to my room—we Jedi live like boarding school kids—and go to bed. It was late anyway. And besides, I had to get up early next morning to go see the results of the initiative.

The initiative I am referring to is the now-infamous Sendal-Macphee Proposition, named for its authors. It was a sort of commentary on the political system at the time. The proposition called for a radical redistricting of the planets—specifically the Core worlds—and an increase in the representative strength of the Outer and Mid-Rim worlds. It was basically a compromise to a debate that had been raging for years. However, because of the ridiculous unicameral legislature that runs the Republic, it was unlikely that it would pass. Everyone knew that the amendments the proposition put forth were far too radical to be supported by the bigger planets. There was no way the likes of Coruscant would tolerate having their votes approximated to barely twice the influence of Deralia's. It was foolish to think otherwise.

It was not going to pass, this I knew. What I didn't know, and neither did anyone else, was how the defeated planets would respond to the nullification. They were so bent out of shape over recent events that thousands of them had stormed the streets of Coruscant in the days before the vote was to be held. It was a sort of political pilgrimage—they wanted to show that they were part of the galaxy too.

The strange thing was that no one knew who was behind the mass migration. There were theories, but this sort of order and cohesion among the hundreds of separate worlds was somewhat astounding. It was not an accident that they were all here. Someone was in charge, but none knew whom. He had not made himself public.

Regardless, they were there and they weren't leaving. The situation was tense, and after days no one knew how they would react to the vote.

As I made my way through the crowd the next morning, the incredible number of policemen and riot-busters shocked me. Clearly the Republic authorities were going to spare no expense in dealing with the potential altercation—they expected a violent reaction.

Walking was easy, though, people always moved out of a Jedi's way. It was like we were the closest things to royalty in the Republic. It's probably why so many of them hated us so much. I'd walk by and I could overhear a young mother say to her child, "Quick, move out of the way—that's a Jedi!"

It's funny how they really know so little about us interstellar warrior monks. There really isn't much to it, but people's heads are always filled with these crazy preconceived notions. That, and the Jedi Order seems to be the favorite topic to tackle for those two-bit, idiot authors that fill up dime stores and grocery isles with books worth less than the paper they are printed on. There was one time, when I was—for some reason I can't remember—dealing with a proprietor of one of those dime stores that I saw something that I could never un-see.

I found a novel like that sitting on the shelf. It had this sinfully flamboyant cover, complete with an overtly sexualized barbarian man posing as a Jedi Knight. He seemed to be trying to protect a very…unnaturally proportioned woman whose clothes were not really functioning properly—probably because she wasn't completely wearing them. It was entitled _Winter of Ecstasy_ and it galled me at the time. I remember thinking…"How could people think that's what the Order is really like?"

Of course, they did not even begin to understand the drama that comes with the Jedi. What hypocrites they are. So much for no emotion.

But I am straying from the topic—the point is they don't know anything about Jedi. They are afraid. So when I walked through the throngs of demonstrators, they just let me go through easily.

I quickly approached the Senate—bypassed about twenty guards who did not even bother to check who I was. If an impostor had put on a robe they probably would have let him in, but that is beside the point.

As I was navigating the multitude of halls, I came across an acquaintance of mine. Apparently he had had the same idea—wanting to see the vote, that is.

He was a short man, rather thin—not the most intimidating of Jedi, and that is comparing him to me. His head bobbed when he talked, causing his shaggy brown hair to bounce around on his syllables. He spotted me with his beady little eyes and ran up towards me.

"Glen!" he called. That was my nickname. Aetius was awkwardly formal, so my friends usually called me Glen, Len, or Lenny.

"Hello, Quinn," I said. That was his last name. But we called him by it so frequently that most of us couldn't remember his first name—myself included.

He bobbed towards me and began with a boyish smile, "They're voting now. The results should be out in a few hours."

There were a lot of things to vote on. There were many other initiatives, but none were real high profile. And of course, the incumbents had to be re-elected—what else was new? The broken Republic has a knack for keeping the same men and women in charge for their entire lives. "Terms" are just an abstract idea. Another reason it deserves to be shattered…

Quinn was real excited. He was a historian at heart. As a Jedi, he never could really fight well, but he had a nimble mind and a ridiculous memory. The Chronicler of Temple took him under his wing and had been training him as one of the historians of the Order. Naturally, an occasion like this would tickle his fancy.

We decided to head to one of the hundreds of little perches that oversee the humongous Senate floor. We got there, persuaded the guards that we were there on Jedi business, and then took up residence on our vantage point.

There were a few final words being presented on behalf of the Sendal-Macphee Proposition as we walked in. One of the flying saucers that bore a representative from the little Mid-Rim world of Doliani. He was an older man, I didn't know his name then—though I found out later that he was called Gausin Arnom—but he was speaking quite passionately. I could see him well; he was not as far away as many of the other senators as his disk floated past. He had a receding hairline, but his white hair was frayed down over his forehead so as to hide it. He chanced a glance over to me as he floated by, and his eyes met mine. His were large, baroque orbs, filled with introspective power. It was as though he could read souls with them.

He bellowed a mighty speech in which he railed against the injustices of the system, and he railed against the Jedi Order.

"For millennia we have been subjugated to the heavy-fisted rule of the Core Worlds! This proposition can change that!" he yelled. "Our federated union can finally take its first steps into the world of a true democracy! Of a true Republic!"

He paused for a moment to gather his breath, but he knew he wouldn't have much time to speak if he continued on with inflammatory rhetoric.

"The system is broken! The Middle planets are powerless in the Senate! We are taxed unfairly! Spending is out of control! The Jedi Order is undergoing an extravagant addition to its Temple—why? Are there not countless other things more worth our time and money? Our own children starve on—"

I couldn't hear him anymore after that. There was an explosion of noise from every direction as the Senate burst into a cacophony of shrieking politicians.

Eventually they calmed down. The voting was about to recommence.

We watched for a while, gazing at all the flinging disks flying through the air, shouldering the fat and overpaid senators on them. The votes were counted electronically, and they were instantly polled through a series of computers and then checked and rechecked. Once everyone was sufficiently calm, the Chancellor would announce the results. It was an antiquated system, but they stuck to it because of some masochistic need to adhere to tradition—no matter how cumbersome it was.

Chancellor Cassini Tiberius stood nervously in his little pinnacle the whole time. I could barely see him, but it looked like his teeth were clamped down on his bottom lip as though it were a cheroot. He was an ineffectual man at best, and a pushover at worst. I knew he wouldn't be able to do anything to pacify the hordes once the initiative failed, and he likely knew it too. You could tell by the way he carried himself.

Once he finally announced the results, it was what everyone expected.

He cleared his throat and spoke through the amplifiers; he went through the results of the propositions in order until, "Sendal-Macphee…322 for, 874 against."

Then everything went into chaos. Papers were launched into the air, trash started flying down from random directions. Most of the big planets' representatives were joyous, while the rest were angry and vitriolic.

I decided to get out of there while I could. Although the scene was ugly, it was undoubtedly worse outside. At least, it would be once the vote was announced.

Quinn looked at me and said, "I think it's best if we wait here a while before going back to the Temple, yeah?"

I agreed.

We held back for several hours, waiting for the fracas to blow over before leaving. It was weird, though, when we found out what happened. There wasn't much of a disaster like we had anticipated. At the time we found it odd, though later we'd figure out why.

What had happened, though, was a giant surge by the migrant horde towards the Senate. However, the police—who were armed with tear gas and blasters set to stun—turned them back. Eventually they relented and dispersed—despite their impressive numbers. Very few were hurt, and no one was killed. It was a surprisingly smooth response. Most credited the Coruscant police force, saying they did a fantastic job.

Everyone rested easy after that. Especially the big planet senators and the Chancellor. Though, in hindsight, it was really the calm before the storm.

We didn't know that then, though, so we went about our business.

I got back to the Temple later that night, and it was dark out. I tried to dodge the other Jedi as best as possible so as to avoid interrogation, but I was not successful.

This moment probably has been replayed thousands of times in my head. I've thought about it so many times that I don't think I can pick out the truth from the imaginings of what actually happened. The weird thing is how under-whelming…how simple an interaction it was then. But now, as I sit in this cell and think about it, I can't help but trace everything back to this moment. To this one person.

"Hi, can you help me?" asked a lustrous contralto voice from behind me as I was making my way through the room of a thousand fountains.

I turned around to see who had stopped me. She was definitely stunning, but the weird thing was that I didn't really consider that then. She just merely…was there. Nothing more or less. But as I think on it, I retroactively assigned her the position of most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. If I actually thought that at that moment…I can't remember.

"Uh, sure," I said, "who are you?"

"I'm Elyana Kerensa," she answered. "I'm looking for Aetius Glendower."

I know for sure I was stunned at that statement. I answered, "I am he."

"Oh," she said, and then furrowed her immaculate eyebrows, "we've been wondering where you were. Gamaliel said you weren't supposed to leave the Temple."

"Err…right," I said.

"Well," she shrugged, "I guess that's all for now. I was just supposed to find you. You are to oversee my dreaded trial." I think she was being sarcastic, but even now I am not really sure.

"You're the padawan?" I asked.

"Yeah," she answered, "say—you don't look that old. I'm not older than you, am I? That would be awkward."

"Thirty," I answered—I think.

"Twenty-eight," she responded with sigh a relief. "That's good. I don't want to be older than my supervisor."

"I don't want to be younger than my subordinate," I answered.

"Okay," she said, trying to end the conversation, "I guess we are supposed to get going tomorrow. Now that I've found you, I can go rest. I'll see you later."

Looking back, it's very strange for me to try to sort out this conversation. At the time, it was perfectly mundane—but now it's reached almost mythological status in my mind. When I thought of Elyana then, my brain told me that she was pretty. It was as if it were trying to inform me, "You should be attracted to this girl." But I wasn't at first. I know I wasn't. I was a Jedi—we just didn't do that. It came later, and I don't remember how it did. Or when. It just was there one day and I'll never know how it came about.

It did help because of her external beauty, though. I do not think you, my reader, are familiar with the Jedi Order, but—contrary to whatever romantic stories have filled your head—their women are not…very…alluring.

It is, I believe, inversely proportional. The stronger one is with the Force, the less attractive she is. I would challenge anyone to refute this, and I don't think it will be. The notion of the mysterious and beautiful female Jedi, I thought, existed only in those aforementioned literary assaults on the senses. But then here was this Elyana—who was defying my preconceived notions.

Rather on the short side, she looked to be less than five and a half feet tall. Her skin was tanned, and she seemed to be of a mixed genetic heritage. Her hair was a kind of dark, chocolate color, and it was tied backwards in a simple ponytail. Her large eyes, however, were a piercing cyan blue. Her face was narrow and stern, though it always looked like she could potentially explode with laughter at any moment.

She walked away very briskly. It was a very simple and altogether forgettable moment. When I try to sort out these events, though, I can trace many things back to not only this day but to this particular meeting.

I effectively ceased to be a Jedi right then. And I had no idea.

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_Author's Notes: The first chapter was so short and insubstantial that I figured I should at least follow it up quickly. Now that I've done that, though, I can't say when the next updates will be. This story is like trying to hold onto a fish out of water—it squirms all over the place and I can't keep it still. It's constantly changing and being edited._

_Every chapter after this one is "under construction", so to speak. So it might be a while until I can get everything in order. So thanks for your patience. I hope this chapter made the character a little bit more sympathetic. Or at least easier to identify with._

_Thanks everyone—and thanks to all of you who reviewed the introduction. You guys are awesome._


	3. The Slippery Slope

_Author's Notes: Against my better judgment I'm going to post this chapter now. It's mostly filler anyway, as I needed to lead up to a major plot point. I've been editing this story a lot, and I'm not really sure if I'm satisfied with it. Hopefully I'll get it in order and post it sometime, but with the way it looks now…this story is not measuring up to the hopes I had for it. Hmm…we'll see if I continue it. For now:_

**The Slippery Slope**

Keep in mind that this was still when I was an idealistic fool. I had never questioned the so-called wisdom of the Jedi. And even though I did not like Gamaliel, I had no reason to ever imagine myself divorcing from their Order. But a series of events, nearly all of them out of my control, caused the split. You could say that I was enlightened.

Elyana helped with that, though I don't think she ever truly intended to. She had no problems with the Order, despite the fact that she frequently questioned them. It was a very foreign concept to me. If she seemed to disagree with things that they did, she would just shrug and say, "I would not have done it that way," and that would be it. She wouldn't defy them or try to change it; she'd just accept that they had certain rules and that she didn't agree with them.

I had never approached the Order that way before. But try as I might, I could not replicate it. Once I learned things about the Order…I found it harder and harder to reconcile the truth—the real truth—with what they taught.

The Jedi don't promote questioning. They are very backwards this way. It is almost as if they do not believe that anyone in their right mind would ever embrace the ideology. I know I wouldn't have, if I had the choice. So they steal young children and indoctrinate them. They pound their brains for years upon years until they are sufficiently brainwashed, to the point where they cannot even think another way.

That is slavery, and the Jedi are themselves slaves to it. It is a brutal circle in which the enslaved continue to inflict punishment on succeeding generations, for no other reason than that they cannot imagine life another way.

The bizarre thing about the Jedi is that they do not condone growth. The most enduring and powerful ideologies in history have been flexible, personal, real. They are belief systems that can adjust and still mean something. They are not strict or legalistic. Legalism can never change, it is impossible to achieve, and it is too easy to circumvent.

A flexible worldview, however, is always relevant. No matter how different society becomes, no matter how the galaxy changes, flexibility—personal flexibility—means that the ideology will never fade away. It fills every nook and cranny of life as though it were liquid poured into an obtuse container. It fills everything and makes it whole.

The only religions that ever amount to any truth at all exist this way. The Jedi religion—if you could call their kind of weird self-deprecating mental torture religion—does not promote this type of experience. The greatest and most provocative minds of all time generally adhere to the very ideology or religion that they question. They can explore it because they know it, they are intimate with it, and they believe it. And they recognize what it means to be alive—to be mortal.

If a Jedi tries to think, especially like this, then he is no longer a Jedi. Questions are the enemy of the Jedi. Once he beings to ask questions, he is suddenly outside of the Jedi code and floating around in an intellectual abyss. There is nothing a Jedi can do when he is in this situation. I know it too well.

Once you begin to doubt the wisdom of their teachings—which really do not amount to anything except don't eat, don't drink, and don't be merry—there is no going back. I think that is why so many Jedi have fallen to the "Dark Side" in the past. Once they're out, they're out, and there is no way back. If everything you know was suddenly smashed in one fell stroke, then it would be impossible to function. I believe this is how Dark Jedi become the way that they are: twisted, vulnerable, and self-destructive. They are those who have lost themselves.

And the Jedi have only themselves to blame. To rid the galaxy of the Jedi would, then, rid the galaxy of the Sith. The two are mutually exclusive.

That is why I so desperately want to destroy the Jedi Order; and that is why the called me a "Sith Lord" and a "Dark Jedi" and whatever other hosts of synonymous insults that they fling from their ivory towers.

Surely you, in your wisdom, can see that this is not the case. I am not a Sith. I only want to destroy the Jedi. I want to rid the universe of this malignant tumor that siphons the marrow out of the Republic's fragile bones. If that means they would like think of me as a Sith, then fine, that is their prerogative. But it doesn't amount to any truth.

Maybe you think that this makes me the same as the Sith, because they too want to see the Order crash and burn. But I want to see it die for the good of humanity. Not because I'm evil for the sake of being evil.

I am not evil, as I'm sure you can tell. I may have killed people, but it was because I was trying to achieve the greater good. With the Jedi gone, the Republic would no longer have the bleeding heart that holds it together. As the Republic would wither, it would eventually die. Its death would sow the seeds for a new nation, an improved nation. It would be good.

The military called me a Sith because of this view, but I am not. I am not!

Gamaliel said I was deranged.

But I'm sane…Oh am I sane…

They just can't see it. They're too blinded by their own foolish notions of reality. They just don't understand. Don't you see? I had to _force_ them to understand. It was the only way.

But, once again, I am getting ahead of myself. I have to go back. Back to the first time I began to doubt the alleged wisdom of the Jedi Order. It was actually on that little excursion to Herra, where Elyana was to find her terrorist prisoner and escort him back the Republic for trial.

Now that I think about it, it is a bit ironic that a captured political prisoner began to first sow seeds of discord within the Order and myself.

Of course, that was not the only ironic thing about that trip. Gamaliel, I later realized, had specifically chosen Elyana for me because he wanted to test me. He wanted to see if I could adhere to the straight and narrow—to see if I wouldn't fall when I had to be around her.

Is that not the most despicable act imaginable? Gamaliel—wretch that he is—took an innocent girl, whose only crime was beauty, and threw her lot in with me without her permission. All of this was for some kind of sadistic test. Is that truly something a noble, light-side Jedi would do? Would a Jedi dangle food in front of a starving man? Would a Jedi spend tax funds to lavishly support their own quality of life while the Rim worlds suffered? Yes—you know the answer: they would.

And they would specifically look for a gorgeous girl like Elyana and tell me to watch over her. Someone from the same planet as her. Someone the same age as her. Just for a "test."

Their cruelty warrants violent reaction. And they would get it.

I sigh when I realize how far gone I am with this tangent. I did not know that Elyana was a test for me then. I figured that out later. Then I was just a bewildered yet righteous Knight—nothing extraordinary.

The story was our voyage to Herra.

I stood with Elyana in the midst of a throng of people at the docks. None of them were headed to Herra, though; no one ever goes there.

"What do you know of this place?" she asked me.

"It's a dead world," I said, "it isn't even habitable. There's nothing there but a maximum-security prison. Outside of the complex, the air is not breathable."

"And my trial is just to go there and bring back the terrorist?" she asked.

I shrugged and said, "I guess so. That's all Gamaliel told me."

"That's all he told me, too."

What an asshole.

I never understood the Jedi's fascination with the enigmatic routine. It does not make any sense. Being ambiguous never made something more inspiring or useful. It only makes it worse or does nothing. What is the point, then?

We moved into a small transport, barely able to accommodate five people. That was fine, though, as no one was bound for Herra except for me, Elyana, and the pilot and co-pilot. Actually, that isn't true, the transport was big. But it was mostly for cargo: food, supplies, and riot gear, etc. for the guards and inmates at the prison. It wasn't meant for transporting people, so there was not much room for that.

The pilot and co-pilot stayed in front, leaving Elyana and me by ourselves in the tiny cabin.

We sat across from each other, on two sides of a little plastic table, trying to make small talk to pass the time.

"I can't believe this is my trial," said Elyana, "I thought for sure I'd have to do something crazy. This seems too simple."

"It always seems too simple, that's how the Jedi operate," I said.

She twisted her mouth in an adorably irritated manner, said, "Do you really think something will happen? All we're doing is escorting a terrorist who's already been captured."

"If I were a betting man," I said, "I'd say yes."

"But you're not a betting man, so that makes me feel more comfortable," she responded.

"Was that sarcasm?" I asked.

"If you can't figure it out, then I shouldn't tell you," she said with a smile. I then realized how she had a very biting sense of humor. I'm not really sure where she would have gotten it. The Jedi discourage humor. Humor is part of individuality, and they hate that. I'm sure Gamaliel would have punished her for enjoying herself.

She decided to keep talking at that point, since I wasn't. She asked, "What could happen?"

"I don't know," I said.

She frowned, said, "It seems silly to me."

"Look at you," I said, "questioning the wisdom of the masters. I'm not sure I should be condoning that since I'm technically in charge of you."

She looked at me oddly and said, "That wasn't very good."

I just sighed.

She then said, "Really, I just think it's silly. It's like they were running out of ideas for trials or something and I got this."

"Do you really think that?"

She mused and said, "Maybe."

"You're a funny Jedi," I said.

She raised an eyebrow and said, "If you mean funny 'ha-ha', then yes."

"Well, you're just a feisty little firecracker, aren't you? Modest too," I responded.

"As much as I am enjoying this exchange," she said, "I don't think it's appropriate."

And that was my introduction into the polar world of Elyana Kerensa. She seemed to operate in two different spheres simultaneously. She would never hesitate to poke fun at the Order, but at the same time she would take most of her responsibilities deadly serious. She would do the same thing to me. It was so confusing sometimes because she would make a sarcastic remark to me, but then if I tried to respond she would act like it was beneath her or something. It was a peculiar quirk of hers. But time endeared it to me.

How I love her. Still love her.

I decided to find out some more about her then.

I apologize if this is getting confusing, but I am trying my best to not mix the timelines. Remember: I was not involved with her at this point. The thought of personal attraction was furthest from my mind then. I would not experience that for some time. At this point in the story, we were just acquaintances.

"You're from Cstephon?" I asked.

"Yes, I am," she responded.

"How much of it do you remember?"

She put her hand on her chin and said, "Well, I don't know. How much do you remember?"

"Nothing," I answered. And this was the truth—I really don't recall anything of my childhood.

"Well," she said, "I guess I remember more than you. I was a bit older when the Jedi impressed me."

"'Impressed'? Not joined?" I asked.

She shrugged and said, "I just said what they do."

I motioned my hand as if to say "continue."

She said, "But I do remember a bit. I even went to school a couple years before they came for me."

"How old were you?"

"Eight, I think…? I don't really know."

"That's older than usual," I said.

"Yes," she replied, "but not old enough for disqualification—I guess that's why you're a Knight now and I am just making the grade…we are about the same age."

I thought about this, then said, "It seems weird to me that they would send me to chaperone you when I only just became a Knight—and I don't even know you."

"I guess so."

The conversation went on like that for some time, broaching the inane on most occasions. I found out that she had a sister who she'd not seen for twenty years, enjoyed music, and was allergic to some kinds of nuts. Even the Force cannot prevent those kinds of things.

We found it increasingly odd that we were on that little excursion together. There really wasn't much to it. All we had to do was play chauffeur, and we weren't even driving.

We arrived at the prison on Herra in due time and were shown onto the premises.

I remember the warden was an unusual man. He was thin and wiry, bald with thick-rimmed glasses. He seemed like a little and inconsequential person, but he had a coldness about him that was unsettling. You wouldn't want to get on his bad side. He even seemed to relish the fact that we were taking one of the prisoners back for trial and execution.

And that brings me to Tandior Versimus. An insane man, by all accounts. He organized the bombing of a Republic building on a distant Outer Rim world. Hundreds were killed. He was a terrorist, and once he was apprehended, it was clear that his attacks were politically fueled.

We escorted him onto the bloated cargo ship quickly and without incident. Tandior himself was a very average man, of a normal build and a forgettable face. I do remember that he had brown hair, but the rest of him is an enigmatic blur to me.

We put him in force cage and then left him to his devices as we departed from the derelict place.

I tried to ignore the man, but he started talking eventually and wouldn't shut up. Eventually I asked him the question that everyone invariably asks a killer: "Why did you do it?"

He smiled at me deviously, then responded, "Why not?"

"You killed a lot of innocent people," said Elyana.

"Silly Jedi," said the man, "what are a few deaths if they bring about change?"

"What is it you bombed?" I asked.

"The Republic embassy on Onderon," he replied serenely, a sort of conniving grin on his face.

"Why?" asked Elyana.

He answered, "The Republic…is very sick." His squeaky voice was disconcerting as he said this. It genuinely frightened me. But then he said, "It needs to be healed."

"How does blowing things up heal it?"

"The Republic…likes to pretend that only the Core exists. Onderon…was tired of it." He spoke slowly, strangely, as though he were savoring every word. He smirked and said, "So…I sent the Republic a message. No representation on Coruscant? Then they get no representation on Onderon. Destroying the embassy was easy."

"Easy? How could it be easy?" I asked.

"It was too easy. The Republic…" he slowed down, continued, "is oh so fragile. I'll bet you didn't know that? Oh but it is. It's a…a…hollow man being blown in the wind. Just a little force, a little push, will knock it down. And then the gusts will blow it away."

We didn't say anything.

"Tiberius has no control…the rim worlds are on the verge of secession. The senate is too bogged down to accomplish anything. And they are too stupid to notice. Eventually there will be a break and they don't even realize it. The noble Jedi, like you, my esteemed companions, are too self-absorbed to do anything about it. Not that they could."

Elyana glared at him.

"I'm just the…tip of the spear," he said and then snickered. "The revolution will still come."

Elyana then said surprisingly darkly, "You'll be dead before then."

"I will," he said, "but that does not matter. More open-minded people will continue our cause."

"I'm not open-minded to terrorism," spat Elyana.

I ignored her comment and asked, "Who else is with you?"

I'll never forget what he said to me after that. He replied with a smirk, "You'll find out…sooner or later."

Now that is foreshadowing that you cannot invent. I do not condone that man's actions. He bombed innocent people. But he was prescient about the disease that rots the Republic. And he was right that it needed to be fixed.

I thought a lot about what he said after he said. I could never approve of his methods, but Tandior knew something I didn't. I could sense it.

I was not closer to breaking with the Jedi then than I was earlier, but I can point out that interaction as one of the first times I had really considered the opposite perspective. The first time I thought about the plight of the other planets.

The remainder of the trip went almost without incident. There was one brief moment when a electro-magnetic current warped with the ship's power and the Force cage went down, but Tandior did not do anything. As the shield fell, he just stood there looking at me. He seemed to be laughing to himself, as though he knew my fate before I did. Or perhaps that is merely the look an insane man lets on. He fakes that he knows what's going on. He wears a mask of intelligence and perceptive thinking, but he really has none of it. It was a very…compelling expression, though.

Power was eventually restored and he stayed in the cage.

Once we returned, we escorted Tandior off of the ship and into the Temple. Security immediately had the man in custody and began taking him away. As he left, he caught my side and said, "So long, Aetius. Do remember what I promised you. And in the morning…don't go upstairs."

I was thoroughly confused by that remark. It kept me pondering what it meant for hours.

Elyana asked, "What did that mean?"

"I don't know," I answered.

We then agreed to split up then. It was late then, and we decided that sleep was the best option. I bade her goodnight and left to go to my room.

That would be the last normal night of my life. I awoke to a horrid noise, the sound of death and destruction. I heard it as I felt it. And I knew immediately what it was: the attack.


	4. The Bombing

**The Bombing**

To this day, I do not know the fate of Tandior Versimus. Whether he was behind the bombing or not, or whether or not he even lived through the massive explosion was something I never learned. Even once I found those responsible. As far as I know, no one actually knows. He disappeared, never to be seen again.

I'm sure you've heard of this attack; that is, if you're a historian. If not, then let me summarize briefly: the Jedi Temple experienced the first direct attack in centuries that day. A huge, coordinated terrorist attack. Bombs were detonated underneath the temple at three different points. The foundation was rattled to the core, and much of the colossal roof caved in. Thousands were killed—mostly Jedi, but a lot of innocents were slain too. Almost all of the contracted workers that were working on the expensive addition to the temple were killed, and the extension itself was obliterated.

I, however, suffered no ill effects aside from being thrown from my bed in confusion that morning. My ceiling cracked and a little plaster fell on me, but that was the extent of my injuries.

As I stumbled out of my room, I felt like the world was falling apart. The place was shaking, the floor was unstable, and people were running and screaming all over the place. Most of the Jedi were confused, wandering around with shell shock. I even saw some dead younglings, crushed underneath falling debris.

I grabbed my robe and lightsaber (not knowing if we were under literal attack of not) and ran down the remains of the hallway. I did not really know where I was going; I just ran. Fires were springing up, and I saw a couple Jedi lying on the ground, one with his hand on his bleeding face. I was compelled to keep going, however, and not stop to help them.

I eventually came across Elyana sitting in a corner with a substantial pile of rubble next to her. I didn't think I was looking for her, but I stopped when I saw her.

"Are you okay?" I asked her.

She looked up at me with a foggy expression, as though in a daze, and said, "What…I…yeah, I think so."

I took her hand and helped her up. Her bright blue eyes were vacant and she looked past me as she stood up shakily. She blinked a couple times, but her hand on her forehead and said, "Did you come to find me?"

"No," I said stupidly, "I was just going by."

"You're too kind," she replied. Again with the sarcasm—I don't think any circumstances would prevent her from employing it. How wonderfully un-Jedi-like she would behave. It was refreshing.

The situation itself was not refreshing, though. I took her by the arm and said, "Come on—let's go."

I still didn't know where I was going, but I was glad to have Elyana in tow. We journeyed through the halls and tried to help some who were injured.

Eventually medical teams showed up, and we were all escorted outside the premises. Search and rescue teams delved into the temple to try to unearth those who had been trapped under the wreckage. We were split up when we left the Temple and I didn't see her again for several days.

About one-third to half of the temple remained structurally intact from the explosion. The search and rescue teams found a fourth bomb in the Temple's underbelly that had not detonated. If it had gone off, the entire structure might have come down. It is likely that many lives were saved by the dud.

Because of this, the Order was able to reconvene in the stable half of the Temple and assume an ordered existence again. They tried to go on with business as usual. Elyana did not have to worry about her knighthood, as they eventually granted it to her in the weeks that passed. One may think that this was a silly thing to do when so many reparations had to be undertaken, but for it wasn't hard for them, I guess.

I was worried at first that we might be blamed for the attack because we brought Tandior to the Temple, but no one seemed concerned with it. Since he disappeared, no one paid it a second thought. I believe no one considered him culpable because he was, after all, in prison until the night before the attack.

Gamaliel, unfortunately, survived the attack. He assumed a position of authority as one of the most senior masters and led the rebuilding effort. The previous Grandmaster had been killed in the explosion, so the Order was embarrassingly headless for this period of time.

As I moved back into the Temple and reoccupied my room, the Order needed to sew another head on its limp body. A vote amongst the Order's remaining council members were to decide who would be the new Grandmaster.

As the election took place, I was lounging about in the company of my peers at a nearby café. We had started frequenting the place when we were forbidden from entering the Temple, but even when we were allowed back we would still go there. These people were my friends, and I was closer with them than I was with anyone else. I trusted them too. They were as close to a family as I had ever had.

Quinn was there, and he was a little pissed off about the whole bombing incident still. A large, black-haired man named Gericault was there too, as well as a silently cynical Twi'lek named Bosch.

"Can you believe," Quinn asked incredulously, "that the Council has done nothing after the bombing?"

"They'll do something eventually," I said. Which was true, of course. The Jedi never let their enemies go unpunished.

"Right," said Gericault, "they can't do anything while the Council is in shambles. They'll figure it out."

"But there's not even a suspect," said Quinn. "They should have somebody lined up."

"I don't think so," I said. "Why blame a scapegoat now? We don't even have an idea of who was behind it. Besides, you're not _supposed _to want to punish anyone for this. That's not our way." I was pretty indoctrinated back then, as you can see.

"Probably those wackos from the Rim," said Gericault eloquently. The man was a bit of a bruiser, so he was never much for diction.

"Either way," said Quinn, "these masters are such…the Council of old would never let something like this happen."

I asked, "You mean the bombing or the fact that no heads have rolled?"

"Both!" he answered. "The old grandmasters didn't screw around. Like Nantaris, he'd have killed the perpetrator himself by now."

Always with Nantaris. Valiens Nantaris was Quinn's favorite historical hero of the Jedi Order, and he spoke of him with great reverence whenever history was the topic of conversation. Gericault knew this well, and so decided to feign ignorance.

"Yeah, but he's not here. Besides, what's so great about an old dead guy?" asked Gericault.

"What?!" Quinn exclaimed with outrage, "what's so great?! It's reported that he killed over one hundred Sith by himself when the Temple was under siege. A hundred!"

"Nantaris was a pansy," said Gericault.

"You're a pansy," fired Quinn. "He'd kick your ass."

Gericault smirked to himself in amusement and said, "Maybe. But my dad could beat up your dad."

"Quiet," I interrupted, "look." I pointed to one of the screens on the wall in the café we occupied. "They're about to announce the new Grandmaster."

To my dismay, the new Grandmaster would be Gamaliel. The other Council members were very approving of his decisions and leadership "qualities" after the explosion. So much so that they elected him as the new head of the Order.

As the screen delivered the news, I hunched down and muttered to myself.

Bosch then spoke for the first and only time that day, said, "There's a guy who doesn't screw around."

"I don't like him," I said. "I never have."

"Because of the padawan?" asked Quinn; referring to the rumor that Gamaliel had once killed a padawan.

"Something like that," I responded.

Days later, Gamaliel enacted his radical plan for reviving the Jedi Order. It was so ridiculous that most of us did not initially believe it.

We would abandon Coruscant.

Unbelievable, right? This spoke volumes about Gamaliel's crazed mind, and it showed me how difficult he would be. Even before the war started.

Gamaliel's plan called for the Jedi to be fractured. His "reasons" were twofold. First, he wanted to disperse the Order to prevent the sort of mass attack that had already befallen us. And secondly, he wanted smaller teams sent out to the Outer Rim to investigate who could have been behind the attacks.

Let me make clear that this was only the Coruscant Jedi who would be fractured. The other, smaller enclaves and Temples would remain intact and continue to train younglings—albeit with heightened security. Those of us on Coruscant would split up, and that included Elyana, even though she was supposed to be on Tython.

By this time, intelligence had led them to believe that terrorists from the Outer Rim were indeed behind the attack. And it was believed that it was in direct retaliation for the failure of the Sendal-MacPhee Proposition. One would think that the Jedi Temple would be an odd place to attack. Why the Temple? Well, the Republic and the Jedi are in a symbiotic relationship. They depend on each other—to their enemies, they are the same thing. To kill one is to kill the other. Also, the Jedi Temple was the symbol of oppression. It was common knowledge that the recently hiked up taxes were supposed to fund the Temple addition. The rim worlds were not very pleased with that.

There was an undeclared war now raging between the Core and the Outer and Mid Rim. Unfortunately for the military, the Core had no concrete enemy. Just ghosts and shadows.

The great irony was that Gamaliel would ultimately bring all this together himself. He was like some kind of great, blind puppeteer who unwittingly assembled all of the necessary pieces together for revolution.

He partitioned the Order into small groups—the smallest being two or three and the largest up to seven. They would then be sent all over the galaxy in an effort to learn anything about this unseen enemy of the Republic.

For reasons I will never understand, he put me with Elyana again. Ostensibly, this is because we had just gotten to know each other and had worked together. But I would think this would be the last thing he wanted, since we brought back a terrorist who may or may not have escaped and been part of the bombing of the Jedi Temple.

I just didn't understand. Now that I look back, it seems like fate is mocking me. I'm in this situation I am now because Gamaliel put me here. If he was truly a manipulator, he knew precisely what he was doing. It is because of him that I am in this situation; from this perspective, he may be a genius. Perhaps this is why I lost to him.

Even as I write, I know this is untrue, though. Gamaliel was not smart enough to perceive all of these events years in advance, and I lost not because of inferiority but because of betrayal. That condemned word for sinners…if it weren't—

I ha…—

Sorry about the mess there. The other guard was coming early for his shift…and quickly. Oronis warned me before he got here and I had to hastily hide this manuscript underneath my horrid mattress. He stood there and watched me for hours, and I hardly moved the whole time. I pretended to sleep, but I didn't. I just lay there coughing.

He finally left a couple minutes ago, and now I can eat and get back to work.

I still have much to talk about.

Unfortunately, I now come to a part of this story that does nothing short of inflame my rage beyond control. I have to withstand the anger, though. I have to bottle it up. Not because of that misguided Jedi principle about sitting on your hands when angry, no, I have to do it for the sake of this story. I can't let myself get carried away and ruin it. And I can't let my hatred screw with my writing and make this illegible. This manuscript must be read. It must. So now I must go forward.

I was not to go with Elyana alone. We were saddled with an older Knight who would "oversee" us and "help out" on our little ridiculous quest. His name: Andury Kalkannis.

My hate for Gamaliel is cold. It is distant. I haven't even seen the man since my imprisonment. He is far away. He is my enemy, but he is the disembodied essence of my enemy. As a man, I do not know him.

Not like Kalkannis.

This man…everything that I despise within humanity was manifested in bodily form as him. He is simply a scourge. I hate to write his name. I hate to think about him. I hate to think about what he did.

His sole pathetic and useless bid for innocence in my story would be that he was simply too dumb to ever realize what he was doing. But that is not even close to an excuse for his actions. He is on par with the most evil Sith Lords of all time for the role he plays in my tale. I make no apologies about this representation of him. I have no agenda, but I want you to know who the villains of this manuscript are. Gamaliel is the overarching manipulator, schemer, and ultimate nemesis, but Kalkannis is the idiotic, hunchbacked lackey who does nothing but foul up everyone's lives because his brain simply doesn't work well enough to do otherwise.

I remember when I first met him. I strolled down to the dockyards to wait for him and Elyana to show up. We were doing out part for the Jedi Diaspora. Our mission was to join with Kalkannis and go to the seemingly mundane world of Doliani—where Senator Arnom hailed from. We would lie low there and investigate.

I found Kalkannis alone by our transport. As I approached he stared at me with that kind of stupefied look of bewilderment one finds on a pretentious middle-class yokel who takes issue with his check at a fancy restaurant.

"My name is Aetius Glendower," I said to him, trying to help out.

"Oh," he said, as though this were some sort of grand revelation, "I've been waiting for you."

"You are Kalkannis?" I asked.

"That's right," he answered.

He was an older man than I, which is mostly why he was going with us. He must have been about fifty at this time, which seems to me to be an indication of how the universe is broken. That such an unmitigated idiot could achieve fifty years of age while I will not see thirty-five is such a grand injustice that words don't properly convey it. That's half a century in which this man did nothing but consume resources, contributing nothing of worth or value to society. A leech would be a good way to describe him. A great, stupid leech.

This leech had short, graying hair, a large nose, and somewhat tan weathered skin. His eyes were brown and set somewhat deep within his wrinkling face. He always seemed to squint while talking, like his cognitive faculties were going into overdrive just to carry on a conversation. I have no idea how he even became a Jedi, to be completely honest, but I suppose they can't measure these things in young, kidnapped children.

"We have to wait for one more," I said.

"Named Elyana?" he asked.

"That would be right."

I tried to carry on a conversation with the man, but everything just seemed empty, vapid. We waited an eternity before she finally showed up.

"Where were you?" I asked.

"On my way here," she replied with characteristic facetiousness.

Kalkannis looked at us both very oddly, as though he did not approve of this exchange. Hearkening back to my aforementioned conclusion, you should know that the Jedi don't like sarcasm. There is no humor, there is peace.

As I think about his reaction now, one would perhaps suspect that he was wary of taking Elyana and me. That maybe he would disapprove of us even then, as though he could sense that there was a budding relationship there. But that is giving the idiot far too much credit. He was not that prescient. I could have kissed Elyana on the mouth right in front of him and he probably wouldn't figure it out.

_That _is the kind of person I would have to deal with. And that is why the terrible, terrible things that took place on Doliani transpired—because I had someone like him around, screwing everything up to such an unimaginable degree that it was impossible to repair.

And now I have to take a deep breath and calm down. I'll come back to this.

We took a small transport to Doliani shortly thereafter. It was a reasonably comfortable trip. Speaking to Kalkannis was awkward, so mostly the trip consisted of Elyana and I speaking to each other with Kalkannis distantly listening in. Every once in a while it looked like he wanted to add something to the conversation, but he never mustered the strength to do it.

The more I spoke to Elyana, though, the more I was enthralled by her uniqueness. No other person I had ever met was quite like her. What was most alluring, to me at least, was not her beauty but her intellect. She could carry on the most fascinating conversations with ease, and she seemed to be an authority on every conceivable topic. I suppose she would be what you would call an intellectual. I am not, so I had to try hard to keep up. Kalkannis was lost so far behind that he might as well have not even been there.

Again, the stereotype was lost on her. I said before, there's an inversely proportional equation that I find works in almost every situation. If a woman is strong in the Force, she generally is not attractive. Also, if she is very smart, she generally is not attractive. Call me a male chauvinist or what have you, but I don't think you can seriously deny that statement.

But that is what made Elyana so amazing. Increasingly, as she spoke, I found myself asking the question, "Who the hell is this person?" I was amazed that I was even talking to her. She should have been somewhere outside of the Jedi Order. Somewhere useful. How ironic that is.

Instead of fulfilling her potential and becoming a public leader or spokesperson, or having a family and educating a group of people to fulfill similar roles, she was shut up within the Jedi Order—never to be heard from by society. That is truly a tragedy. And such a waste of talent, too.

Still, I do not think I was fully aware of my attraction towards her yet. It's a very unfamiliar thing for a Jedi, so I don't think I was really prepared to understand what it was. Imagine if you experienced a feeling that you hadn't for thirty years because you were conditioned not to. What do you do once it arises? Do you even know what it is? Do you even recognize it? It almost becomes a fear because it is an unknown—and the unknown is always terrifying.

Because of this uncertainty, I do not know if I was attracted to Elyana yet. It may or may not have developed during that flight—the whole trip is somewhat of an emotional blur. But soon it would form, and then it would transform to total, devoted infatuation, and then real love. But not yet.

We arrived at Doliani after several hours, and we had to wait at the docks forever because of some kind of perceived security breach. I don't remember what it was, but it sure elongated the process.

We landed in Thoyahna, the capital city of Doliani, in the middle of the day. The planet was truly a sight to behold. It was a very lush world; temperate, yet green. One could call it, as it was back then, a paradise. The foliage was melded with the ancient city, the fluted columns and white marble buildings intertwining with the wild, natural essence of the planet. The construction did not tear the earth asunder as it usually does. Instead, it managed to compliment the environment. As if the buildings were actually _supposed _to be there. They just belonged. It was very beautiful.

The people there seemed to be unaware of the majesty of their planet. But when you live on Coruscant as long as I have, you almost forget what a tree is. Right when we left the dockyard, I beheld a gargantuan, coniferous sequoia jutting out of the ground and high into the sky. It was an incredible sight. The long, stone staircase expanded outwards from the main entrance to the docks. Grass extended around it, but countless trees and plants provided their own walls for the walkways. The tree towered above them.

"I didn't know trees could get this big…" I muttered out loud.

Elyana heard me, said, "Yes—they can." She then perceived my ignorance and wisely asked, "How long have you lived on Coruscant?"

"Ever since I joined the Order," I answered.

"That's a long time," she answered, "I don't think I could do it. That planet breeds claustrophobia—I'd need to escape somewhere just to breathe."

"You get used to it," I shrugged.

"I couldn't. I'd need a retreat. Somewhere to get away and just be away. Somewhere like…" she then trailed off.

"Like what?" I asked. I was very interested in what she had to say, truth be told. It got to the point that I was interested in everything she said. No matter how mundane.

She smiled at me, and I was surprised to see a little bit of embarrassment on her face. It was quite adorable. She stuck her tongue out very slightly—but wasn't pointing it at me—before saying, "No—you'll laugh at me."

"I won't laugh at you," I assured her.

"Well," she looked down at her little feet and then back at me, said, "I guess…" and then another slightly meek smile, before saying, "I guess it couldn't hurt."

I waited.

"I've always dreamed of just getting a little, distant apartment on a faraway planet like this. Just some place to go and rest, take a break from all the hectic things in life. Just stay there and read, and watch the nature, and listen and play music."

I thought that sounded like a very pleasant way to live, but she still seemed embarrassed, said, "Look, it's just a silly fantasy I've had since I was a little girl."

The sad thing was that she would never get to do it because the Jedi Order always interfered. She couldn't live her life the way she wanted because of them. It was quite depressing.

"It sounds nice," I said to her, hoping to reassure her that I would not laugh at her. I then asked, "You mentioned music when we went to Herra. You seem really passionate about it."

"I am," she answered, "it's the one thing I refuse to let the Jedi take from me. I started to learn it before they took me to join the Order, and I won't give it up."

"You play?" I asked.

She nodded sheepishly, said, "I do…I shouldn't have told you that. The Order really discourages it; they think it is unnecessary and that it distracts me from what's important. But they just…they don't know…they don't know how beautiful and powerful it is. You can communicate through music on a completely different level than through simply speaking. It's the most powerful medium for communication there is. The Jedi are supportive of learning through books…so why not through music?"

I suppose I agreed with her, though I was not really sure then. I hadn't heard that perspective before, but her aptitude for just about everything was shining forth again. I decided that she must be the most diversely talented person I had ever known. It was almost overwhelming. I was not sure what to say, so I said, "I didn't know you really contested the Order like that. I didn't think they'd tolerate it."

She seemed to hesitate before saying, "They don't really…I shouldn't have told you that. They discourage it. I shouldn't have said anything."

"It's okay," I tried to say, hoping to assuage her fears, "I won't do anything to jeopardize you—if that's what you're afraid of." I then looked down the wonderful white, stone stairs to see Kalkannis staring at a sign with directions as though it were written in an incomprehensible language. I said, "And he won't do anything either."

She only answered with another smile. Quickly I was growing attached to that smile. It was infectious.

Using the directions, we eventually decided on a hotel. We would go there just for the time being, to get our bearings in the city. From there, we could determine where to go and what to investigate. At least, that was our pretense. I was just overwhelmed with the place. Also, I was experiencing quite a bit of inner turmoil, as I am fairly certain this was when I was first cognizant of my feelings for Elyana. I had no idea what to do about them.

The hotel was just as picturesque as the rest of the planet. We walked through the streets in awe until we arrived at the right place. A stream flowed gently through a sort of marshy area, underneath two ornate viaducts that led to the hotel entrance. Above the first story, wrapping around the building, were dozens of reliefs; carved into the structure by local artists.

We walked inside, and the hotel gave me a sort of archaic feel. It was ancient, yet somehow contemporary at the same time. I really liked the place.

I went to the man behind the register and asked for three rooms. He looked at me oddly, asked, "Jedi? You use hotels?"

"Do you use air?" Elyana asked from behind me. It was probably not a good idea for her to say that, as we were trying to make a good impression, but if she had one flaw, it was that she could not resist the powerful allure of the sarcastic comment.

The man was not exactly pleased with this, just said, "Whatever, here are your keys. You can reach the front desk through the holograms in the rooms—just don't expect to be high on priority."

I just thanked him and we went upstairs to check it out. After getting everything situated, I realized how tired I was. I got something to eat quickly and then went to bed just as the sun was setting. The time difference was noticeable, but not jarring. And I slept quite pleasantly.

---

_Author's Notes: I realize that it is unlikely that Elyana would actually know much about music, or be able to play an instrument, but I decided to suspend disbelief in order to make her more interesting to Aetius. I hope no one takes issue with that…it is rather unrealistic, but…meh!_


	5. Accidental Encounters

_Author's Notes: Longer chapter here now. Sorry about taking a while, but I've been not writing at all lately, and my reserve of chapters is slowly dwindling. I am not going to let me post another one until I finish at least one, preferably two more chapters after this…it's a tall order._

_Anyway, it's time for another game of "Spot the Radiohead lyrics," which I play obsessively. Cool points to whoever finds it! Clue: think __**In Rainbows**_.

**Accidental Encounters**

I suppose I should probably detail Doliani a little more, perhaps it will make it clearer as to why this seemingly harmless world turned into such a violent place.

It is located in the Mid-Rim, about equidistant from the Core to Tatooine. Humans appeared to be native to the planet, though it is not really sure how. It has been theorized that they were somehow introduced to the place by a foreign race, since the fossil record simply is not there. The place was not discovered until well into the Republic's history, and so retained much of its separate identity in the forced assimilation effort that followed its acceptance into the trade federation. Ancient traditions such as their parliament building and a completely useless head of state in their emperor—Cadyn III when I arrived there—were preserved, mostly for sentimental reasons.

The planet itself would have been completely inconsequential were it not for a large, rich deposit of a rare metal alloy in the jungles of its southern hemisphere. If processed correctly, this alloy could produce an incredibly resistant form of durasteel, of which the Republic military made extensive use. Because the alloy was easy to mine, and not much of it was required for the durasteel, Doliani began to play a large role in supporting the military.

This made Doliani a rather important place. Unfortunately, however, the planet was not very populated. There were only several large cities, and the biggest one was the capital Thoyahna. Most of the planet was lush jungle that was not easily habitable. As such, the planet only had three senators, barely giving it any say in the Senate. For the important role that Doliani played in the Republic military, this was not fair.

Naturally, the local government fought this marginalizing, but was generally powerless to resist the overwhelming force of the Republic federation. This, in and of itself, may not have produced a conflict—but in spite of these injustices, the Republic still expected Doliani to pay their taxes in full.

Don't let the planet's low population fool you, though. Even though it was not very populated as a whole, the capital was grossly overpopulated. Nearly the entire planet lived in Thoyahna or one of the other two big cities, Zolaskis and Volos. Despite the beautiful superficial quality, Thoyahna was overrun. There were people everywhere, and I saw many beggars in the streets, trying to prod people for money. Throngs of people swarmed over you the minute you went outside. It was almost claustrophobic at times. And always, wherever you went, their abuse at the hands of the Republic was the topic of conversation. Their news stations covered it, their holojournals wrote about it, their people argued about it. It was _everywhere_.

As you can expect, they did not appreciate this, and controversy had been brewing around the planet for years. One of the more charismatic Dolianian senators—Gausin Arnom—had been trying for years to assemble the right alliances and shift the balance of power towards the abused Rim worlds like this. They hoped to gain enough sway in Senate to end the excessive spending on fixtures in the Core, lower the taxes, and make planetary representation more even. But they were not having much success, as I detailed earlier. One of the things that they were most concerned about was the overpopulation: with excessive money being diverted to the core (and it was not even wartime), there were less funds for municipal expansion and cleaning. It left parts of Thoyahna rather disgusting, and since there were so many people, the hospitals could not accommodate them all…which left them in the streets—even more unhealthy.

But that is just a taste of how bad the situation was. It was the state of Doliani as I found it: a powder keg, waiting to erupt.

Already you could see political turmoil brimming underneath the planet's metaphorical surface, threatening its veneer of a stable and bountiful place. Security was heightened at the space port and the Republic Embassy. Even the Republic militia ran frequent drills in case a response was necessary. There were parades, demonstrations, and threats of rioting. The Republic guards near the Embassy had to quell minor uprisings more than a few times. It was tense.

The most obvious anti-Republic demonstration I encountered, however, was a full-blown rally.

We had been on the planet for several weeks, switching hotels every so often, not having had much success "investigating." Mostly we had wandered around, trying to think of things to do. I got to know Elyana quite well during this time. As we were each other's only friends on the planet, we really were around each other all the time. Kalkannis was usually there too, but he remained a somewhat alien presence. I tried to get to know him too, but did not learn much aside from the fact that he was your stereotypical hyper-conservative Jedi buffoon, except in his case he did even less of his own thinking than those types normally do. He was like some kind of droid who knew several phrases of Jedi wisdom and used them in almost every conversation. That was Andury Kalkannis. We had to let go of our emotion, harness peace, and avoid the Dark Side at all costs.

As if "avoiding the Dark Side" was great advice. It's not as if the dark side is a purple, gooey substance floating around in space, attaching itself to people and corrupting them. Defining evil is not easy, but what I've found is that it is impossible to define it without also defining good. They two are mutually exclusive. Good cannot exist without the equal and opposite possibility for evil. Evil is like a shadow. Whereas darkness is the absence of light, evil is the absence of good. The standard of good must be measured up to, when it's not, it's a failure. A great failure is embracing the "dark side." There are only two sides to the Force, despite what the grays say—if you're not light, then you're dark. The reverse is also true—and since I'm obviously not dark…?

While this is admittedly simplistic, it is far more complicated than the juvenile perspective the Jedi hold on the issue. To them, evil _is _a purple blotch of badness floating through the air. Their advice is to treat evil like an illicit drug—"don't do the dark side." Perhaps that is why they never seem to act—they are always waiting for that kind of idiotic representation of evil to show itself before they move. Of course…since they refrain from doing good in the face of evil, then that would make them evil as well—wouldn't it?

Alas, I am straying again. I'll simply leave it at that. I'm no philosopher.

Back to Doliani: all three of us were walking through the streets of a crowded market square when we found the demonstration. There was a haphazard stage assembled, made of wood it seemed, and hundreds of people were gathered around it, listening to an impassioned speech by a man who seemed to be about my age. He was booming his tenor voice from his podium, speaking authoritatively about the injustices of the Republic.

We did not know what, exactly, he was talking about since we arrived in the middle of the speech, but I could guess that it had to do with the failure of the Sendal-MacPhee initiative.

He moved around the stage as he spoke, making use of his entire body, rather than simply his voice. He jumped off of the stage sometimes; he clenched his fists as he yelled. At the height of his patriotic fervor, he wrenched a chair off of the stage, into the air, and then smashed it over the cement. The crowd roared enthusiastically.

"That man is letting his emotions control him," said Kalkannis observantly.

I would learn later that this man was named Theodoric Ialim. He would play a major role in the development of the revolution.

As he continued his fire and brimstone rhetoric, he spotted us in the crowd. Jedi tend to stand out, and so he pointed at us.

"You!" he called out with tremendous force, letting his head fall slightly backwards as he said it, like he couldn't look at us directly, "Jedi!"

The crowd around us cautiously spread out, leaving all three of us isolated in the middle of the throng.

"I don't like this," said Elyana.

"Agents of the Republic!" he called again. "What do you have to say for yourselves? The nation you serve is harsh and unfair! Our planet is being abused, violated, _raped_ by this galactic federation! Do you not seek out injustice? Do you not pledge to right the wrongs committed by society?"

"We serve the Republic and the Light," answered Kalkannis dimly.

Everyone seemed befuddled by this statement, but Theodoric used it to his advantage. He then responded, "If you do—as you say—serve the Light, then you will be sympathetic to our cause! We are but average people, peaceful people, but the Republic is abusing our planet's natural resources, and we are forced to pay outrageous taxes for them to do it! And we cannot have a say in this process, because our planet is granted only three votes in the Galactic Senate!"

He held out his hand to us. It felt like he was reaching across fifty yards to get to us. His voice, overcome by emotion, trembled through the air. He said, and it almost sounded like pleading, "Join us—support our cause! Tell the Jedi of our predicament! With the aid of the Jedi, we can overrule the dictatorial whims of the Core Worlds! We can unite the Rim worlds together and usher in a new age of cooperation and peace and _equality_ for all!"

He was quite the speaker, I had to give him that. His words were not so powerful, but his manner of speech was. He was overcome with enthusiasm. He charismatic demeanor infected his words with a kind of persuasion that I cannot appropriately convey through writing.

"Go," he said suddenly, "leave this place. But promise us this, oh wise Jedi masters, that you will consider our plight. Remember this place when you return to your ivory towers."

We used the opportunity to vacate the premises as soon as possible. He bought us an exit, so we took it.

As we returned to the hotel, Elyana said, "I don't know if we should broadcast our affiliation with the Jedi. Perhaps we should wear civilian clothes."

"But the robes are the symbol of the Order," protested Kalkannis.

"Exactly," she answered, "and the Order seems to be very unpopular here. I've seen the way people look at us. It would probably be wise to avoid an incident, if possible."

I saw the wisdom in her words, but Kalkannis did not seem appreciative.

We returned, I ate dinner by myself in my room, and then thought to myself for a good deal of the evening. I tried to consider what Theodoric was talking about. It was hard to envision myself in his situation, but I tried. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that his points were valid. Now, I know that the Jedi are corrupt and the Republic was essentially stealing from Doliani. But then it was a hard thing to wrap my mind around. It would get easier, though.

I fell asleep, and slept soundly until morning. I took Elyana's advice and dressed myself in normal clothes after showering. They were uncomfortable and suffocating. You get used to the Jedi robes and it's tough to live without them. They may be bland, but they are comfortable. But just wearing average pants and a shirt felt like I was tying denim and cotton to myself. It was all too tight, or at least it felt that way. I was not entirely comfortable.

Perhaps this discomfort is what clouded my mind, because what I would do next was probably one of the stupidest things I have ever done in my entire life.

I went to Elyana's room, my mind preoccupied, and I opened the door and started going in. She didn't appear to be in the room, and against my better judgment I walked in closed the door. I stood there for a moment, and I heard a noise coming from around the corner towards what I _thought_ was her closet. I walked that direction and turned the corner…and immediately froze.

This will probably astound you, but that was the first time in my life that I had ever seen a woman naked. Perhaps you find that notion…unlikely…but we Jedi live very insular lives. It's something people take for granted, but when you grow up in that environment…there are things that you don't know…and things you never learn. You live in a temple or academy for almost your entire life, rarely leaving until you are already conditioned as a clone…how would you ever know?

People forget, because of those stupid romance novels that always feature Jedi, that a Jedi would know nothing about sex or any kind of eroticism. If you find it unlikely that that would have been the first time I had beheld a woman in the nude, then consider what your life would be like if you lived as though you were a slave in a giant temple with no access to holovids. And for some reason people can always envision Jedi going to unsavory places like strip clubs to solve disputes. That doesn't happen. Jedi don't go there, police do. Jedi solve bigger problems—galactic ones. We don't associate with normal people. We are distant. _That _is how this happens.

I don't even know why her door wasn't locked. I never really understood that. Although…it occurs to me that the door could have been locked, and I unlocked it through the Force without even thinking. I wasn't thinking at all that moment. Even a Jedi knows to knock first, especially when a girl is in the room…

As for the incident…I walked in when she was getting out of the shower. She was in the process of toweling off when I rounded the corner. I merely froze.

I didn't even know what to do. I was petrified. How was I supposed to react? I almost felt like throwing my hands in the air and running away screaming. It was as if my whole religion was just shattered in front of me. _This _was part of the dark side, wasn't it? What women kept underneath their robes…that led to the dark side!

I was rendered completely immobile. She did not notice me at first because she was facing the other way. She pulled her towel up and put it over her head to dry her beautiful hair, and I was just standing there, looking at her stupidly. It was…amazing and horrifying at the same time. Only a Jedi would have the conflicting emotions of fear and love warring inside himself at this sight—just like I did.

I thought, that since she didn't see me, I could back up and get out of there before she realized I was there. I cautiously took a step backwards, and stupidly slammed my leg into a coffee table. A vase fell to the ground and shattered, utterly destroying the silence.

She shrieked and instantly spun around, purely by instinct. She had to find her intruder, after all. In an amazingly graceful move, she had the towel cover her breasts and the rest of the front of her body before I saw anything. My stomach leapt into my throat as she looked at me. I naturally frightened her, and she was breathing quickly. Despite my horror, her face was enthralling even then. Her hair was still wet, and matted clumps of it clung to her brown skin. Her cyan eyes were so wide they were almost bulging out of her head. As soon as she realized it was me, her demeanor shifted from fear, to embarrassment, and then to anger.

I had to try to explain myself.

"My G—" I stammered, I don't even know what I was saying, "I'm sorry! I—I—"

I ran. I ran incredibly fast. I was out the door in an instant and I shut it loudly.

I don't even know if she could hear me through the door, but I just repeated, "I didn't mean...I'm sorry! It was an accident!"

I'm sure my face was red. I put my hand on my forehead, grabbed a coat and took off. I didn't even wait to see what her response would be once she saw me again. I just got the hell out of there.

What I saw, though, was not something I could ever forget. If I wasn't attracted to Elyana by then, I certainly was after that. There was no denying it, but I had inadvertently stumbled across her in her full glory—the most beautiful woman to ever live.

The sight of her warm, ivory gold skin and smooth curves has embedded itself into my memory. It was a fleeting glance, and only of her from behind, but it was enough. I was mesmerized. She was perfect; an exotic, grand odalisque, set apart from every other woman who had ever lived. She was in her own tier.

But embarrassment and shame weighed on me heavily as I left the hotel. I didn't even care to see what Kalkannis was doing, and I did not wait to see either of them again. I just stalked off to who knows where, getting lost in my thoughts.

Now, I know that this all seems so improbable. But like I said, the Jedi live very separate lives from the rest of the galaxy. With love outlawed, this kind of…experience…never happens. I realize that, through access to modern technology, there are women everywhere and a man can see them naked anytime he wants, but Jedi do not allow themselves access to that kind of technology. For good reason, really. If you ask me, that sort of devalues the whole gender. Somehow, a naked woman becomes mundane. Ordinary. Boring. I'll tell you one thing, though. If it takes you thirty years to even come even _that _close to a woman, there's no way you would ever take advantage of her—even if the opportunity arose. She would be the most precious thing in the world to you. And that is…perhaps tragically…how I began to feel about her.

To those of you who aren't Jedi, this probably is mundane, but to a Jedi like I was, it is nearly impossible to place that kind of accident into the proper perspective. What was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to feel? I knew by then that I had developed these feelings for her (how could I not, after seeing that?), but I had no idea what to do about them.

And I had likely offended her beyond all reasonable expectation by doing such a stupid thing. I just didn't want to think about it. I figured I had just ruined everything and would have to live with it.

Luckily, perhaps, my thoughts were interrupted by a familiar voice.

"Sorry about yesterday," it said.

I looked up from where I was walking (which was through a garden alley) to see the figure of Theodoric Ialim perched above me on a stone wall, his elbow propped up on one knee.

"Excuse me?" I said to him, trying to act like I didn't recognize him.

The man had sandy, blond hair, cut short somewhat haphazardly. Despite his apparent youth, he looked older when he was this close, as opposed to standing on the stage. He had the early showings of crow's feet next to his eyes, probably from smiling excessively. As an orator, you have to smile a lot. His eyes were bright blue, and his mouth was thin and somewhat crooked.

He hopped down from his perch and landed right in front of me. He said, "Look, I know you're the Jedi from yesterday, I recognize your face." I said nothing. "Don't worry," he said, "I mean you no harm."

I was a bit nonplussed, but he continued, "I didn't want to call you out in the middle of the speech like that, but it was only a matter of time before the crowd realized you were there. I was afraid that they might try to start a confrontation, and that could have only ended two ways: they would have all been killed, or they would have subdued you at tremendous cost—neither of which are very profitable."

I thought, said, "I suppose not."

"So I tried to orchestrate an exit for you—I am pleased you took it. And I do hope you considered what I said."

He was talking almost a mile a minute, and I barely grunted, "I—"

"Forgive me," he began, "where _are_ my manners? My name is Theodoric Ialim. I am a district representative here on Doliani—my family comes from Zolaskis, down in the southern hemisphere."

He held out his hand, so I took it and said, "I am Aetius Glendower—from Coruscant."

"Jedi Knight, I presume?"

"Well, I'm not a padawan or a master, so you are correct."

"Where are the other two Jedi?"

I sighed, said, "They aren't here right now—I don't know where they are."

He put his hand on his chin, said, "Mind if I ask about them? It could help if I see them later on."

"Why would want to ask about them?" I asked.

He laughed, said, "Nothing malicious, my friend, just curiosity. I'd like to make the most of your visit—despite the political turmoil brewing, Doliani has a reputation for hospitality."

"Well, I guess I could tell you their names. The older man is Andury Kalkannis—he's a little slow. The woman is named Elyana Kerensa."

He nodded, said, "Thanks for telling me. Now I'll know what to call them if I approach them. That Elyana—I saw from a distance—she was very striking. Especially for a Jedi. I mean, the ones I've seen…"

I bristled at this comment, and he picked up on it right away. He said, "I apologize, you have intentions there?"

"_No_," I answered firmly, "I am a Jedi, and so is she. We don't have…those things…"

"What things…?" he asked, rather befuddled at my ambiguity.

"Nothing," I said, "nothing at all. I'm just a little flustered."

"What about?" he asked.

I was getting annoyed with his prying, to tell the truth. I am certain now, as I was then, that he was feigning all this interest in order to make me more sympathetic to him. Whatever his intentions, it worked. And besides, I needed someone to talk to at that moment.

"I…accidentally walked in on her while she was changing. It was…very stupid of me. I left and have been wandering around since then. I think I am lost."

He winced, said, "Well, that never is good. I hope it all gets straightened out, though I suppose there is not much you can do. It's not as if you can un-see the things you witness."

"If only," I said.

He then added, "Well, if you're lost, I suppose I could help you find your way back. Which hotel was it?"

I told him the name, and we turned and began walking. It was around noon at this time, so the sun was high, but the air was fresh and cool. I was thankful for this opportunity to clear my head.

As we walked, he spoke up again. "Why is it so bad?" he asked. I looked at him oddly, and he clarified, saying, "Not that you walked in on her—that is bad." I slouched in defeat, but he continued, "I mean—you said Jedi 'don't have those things'—I suspect you mean love and sex. Why is that so bad?"

"Love leads to the dark side," I said, forgetting that an outsider might find this speech unusual.

"The 'dark side'?" he asked, "What is that? Is that evil?"

"More or less."

"So—love leads to evil? I'm going to have to disagree with you there."

"It's not so much that love leads to evil, but that when you love someone you tend to act irrationally. And irrational people are more susceptible to evil."

"Again—I disagree. The most evil people in history tend to be levelheaded and calculating. Crimes of passion are everywhere, obviously, but they pale in comparison. Take the way the Republic is marginalizing us," he said, "that is not done out of some kind of emotional hysteria. That is cold, calculating evil."

"Very clever segue," I said to him, "but you should probably aim more for subtlety."

"I figured it was worth a try," he stated, flashing a charismatic smile.

Looking back, I have to agree with the man. Love does not lead to evil. Hate leads to evil, and hate is on the other side of the spectrum. Love does not lead to hate, so there is a chasm there for which the Jedi ideology just cannot find an appropriate bridge. Saying that love leads to the dark side is an insult.

As we continued our stroll, Theodoric suggested we get some food before continuing on. It had been a while since I ate, so I agreed with him.

I followed him through a cobbled, stone street down into a little constructed gully that had unusually foreign buildings built all around it. They were tanned with brown roofs, and rounded at the corners—there was something almost mythical about the way they looked.

"This deli is fantastic," he said, "genuine Dolianian cuisine."

As we walked in, a very large, gray skinned alien (an unusual site on the predominately human planet) in a white apron threw his arms in the air, said, "Theo! Good to see you! It's been a while—how is job going?"

"It's going," he responded.

The fat alien looked at me through his four beady eyes, then asked, "And who is this?"

"This is my friend Lenny," he answered. He then whispered to me, "Mind if I call you Lenny?"

I didn't have time to respond before he continued, "He's from off-planet. Coruscant, actually."

"Bastards!" yelled the fat alien. "Do you realize how much business I've lost since the taxes were hiked up? I'd like to punch Chancellor Tiberius in the face myself. You Core sons of bitches, living like no one else exists."

Theodoric calmed him down and ordered something before taking me aside and saying, "Our economy has suffered recently. It makes it hard for family-owned businesses like this one."

I merely nodded. Although it was not very subtle, at least this time his showcasing of the evils of the Republic was genuine. Unless Theodoric approached that fat alien earlier and told him to say those things—which I suppose I could not put past him. Either way, it was not necessarily convincing, but it was thought provoking.

We ate—the food was quite good—and then Theodoric led me back to my hotel. He kept feeding my bite-sized pieces of political news. Mostly it concerned the injustices of the Republic. The more he brought it up, the more legitimate it sounded. The most compelling thing was the lack of power in the Senate. For all of the trading Doliani was doing, that its voice in the Senate was so small was not a good thing. And their economy was stagnating quite impressively. I could see the signs after he taught me where to look for them. But above all, the fact that they were being so excessively taxed while not holding a much say in the matter is what drove them wild.

I was growing more sympathetic. I consider myself an objective person, and my sympathies for this planet were not borne out of ignorance. The situation was legitimately bad. It was obvious, as it still is, that the Republic failed as an institution. Why should the Jedi continuously try to breath life back into it? Its outer worlds struggle even to survive, cut off from the heart of the country, and the imbalanced trade worked like clogged arteries, barely sustaining the empire. The Republic had been brought to the brink of collapse many times, but every time it may finally be vanquished it is revived, only to stumble onwards for generations. The great heroes of the Jedi Order—Odan-Urr, Revan, Caius Lucullus—they all managed to prolong the inevitable collapse of the diseased nation. But eventually the Republic would fall too far for anyone to save, and this was a fact that grew ever more clear to me.

When we got close to the hotel he bade me goodbye, saying we should talk again sometime later. I would walk the last couple hundred yards alone.

That was when an unusual conversation befell me. Despite everything that I've told you about politics or religion or what have you, this remained one of the single biggest catalysts for my divergence from the Republic and specifically the Jedi Order.

As I was walking back to the hotel, an older woman, of perhaps sixty suddenly emerged from a crowd and latched onto my arm.

I was startled initially, but then I saw her face and realized how harmless she was. She was hunched over a bit, looked to be quite poor, too. She had once had brown hair, but it was mostly gray now. Her eyes were a swollen sort of blue, worn down from years of use it seemed.

"You…" she whispered, "a Jedi…"

I was uncomprehending. I stated suavely, "Of course not."

"Don't lie," she stated firmly.

I glanced left and right, and saw that no one else was listening to us. I took her by the arm and lead her away from the crowd close to an unused alleyway in between two decrepit stores. I just stared at her.

She said, "You…Jedi."

"What is it you want?" I asked.

"How can you do this to me?!" she cried out.

"Excuse me…?" I asked, quickly surveying the environment and trying to see if I could just ditch her there, as she was quite obviously loose a few screws.

Her eyes darted about frantically, and she held onto me tightly, said, "How can you let this happen? Look at me!"

My mouth fell open, but I had nothing to say. I wanted to tell her to see a doctor, but for some reason I didn't.

"Don't you know?" she asked. "You take children away…but you leave so many of us behind."

Still I said nothing. But I could tell she was gaining a bit of her sense back. Or, at least some control of her mind.

She said, "Thirty years ago…you took my son. Why…why did you do it?"

Now it made sense. All this time I had never considered the opposite perspective. I was familiar with my own life—being taken from my family, but I had never thought…what happened to them? What did they do? Are they still alive? Do I have any siblings? It was all too much…but it disturbed me…deeply.

I had nothing to say, the answer was, of course, that family breeds strong connections that a Jedi can't have. Otherwise they are more susceptible to falling. Though I did not say that, somehow she seemed to know.

"My husband died," she suddenly said, breaking down into tears, "he died right after. And you took my son! The only part of him still alive! How could you do this to me?! How can anything make that okay?"

"We…we do what is necessary," I stuttered.

"Why was it necessary to take my son away!?"

I grew flustered, as all the events of that day were taxing me. I said, "I didn't do anything to you! The other Jedi did. It's their fault, just leave me alone."

I tried to leave but she wouldn't let me. She said venomously, "It _is _your fault! All of you! Swine! Bastards! You stole my son!" She started screaming louder. "I vowed I would find one of you one day, and now I have. And you say nothing! Is that because you have no answer?"

She grabbed onto me again and I acted rashly. I threw her off and she bounced backwards, into the wall. She then began to weep uncontrollably. She wailed and cried out to no one and everyone. I could not even make out what she was saying. But then I was suddenly struck with sorrow, overcome with pity. I could only just watch as this old woman was writhing in agony. It was, truly, the first time I had ever seen the opposite side of the story. The first time I had ever seen the result of one of the Jedi kidnappings. It was horrible. How _could _anyone justify doing this to someone? Especially in the name of good. Does that even make _sense_? How can you say that kidnapping a child is _right_? Ever? It was all backwards.

And then, as I watched her misery, I had an epiphany. She…was my mother.

No, not literally. She wasn't really _my _mother. But she may as well have been. She would have been about that age. But I suddenly projected that one lonely image I had of my own sweet mother onto her. I could see my mother shrieking and wailing because her son had been taken away.

Had my mother been treated this way too? That…is an injustice that words cannot properly render. It is too terrible to describe. Nothing the Sith could ever do could compare to the evil that I saw in front of me.

But I couldn't look at the evil. It was too horrifying, too disturbing, too frightening. I turned as she wailed and I ran, hoping to avoid anyone's notice. No one had heard her due to our seclusion, and I had to get out of there immediately.

I must confess that her image has haunted me ever since. If there were one reason for which I believe the Order should be destroyed, it is because of her. Because of that old woman. Because of…my mother.

Don't you see now? The Jedi _are _evil. Nothing they say or do can justify this.

I thought on this as I made my way back to the hotel. I took a deep breath before going up the steps of the hotel. Before I could even get to the door, Kalkannis met me. I had to scramble to even start thinking clearly again. Surely I would have to answer for what had happened earlier.

He was not very happy, said, "Elyana told me what you did." He furrowed his brow and stared at me like he was some kind of self-ordained disciplinarian. He said, "Lust is even more abominable than love—it leads to the dark side. As a chaperone of sorts…I'm supposed to report this kind of thing. You _should_ be separated from her to prevent you from indulging in your carnal desires. Why would you even try to do something like that?"

See how unfathomably idiotic this man is? I wanted to punch a hole in the wall after he said this. I just returned pitifully, "Look, I did not do that on purpose! It was an accident. I wasn't thinking clearly and I went in. I shouldn't have! I closed the door immediately and apologized. What else could I do? It was an _accident_."

He squinted, said, "An accident?" He didn't seem to believe me. "I don't know—there are no accidents, there is the Force." I wanted to scream. "But I suppose…I'll wait and see. I don't…I won't report you. Not yet. Just be careful, Glen."

I felt violated by that conversation, like my name had just been abused when he called me "Glen"—as if that inhumanly stupid primate could have possibly been that close to me. Close enough to use my nickname. How inconceivably idiotic.

I sighed and he turned to leave. I was so distressed. The situation looked bad. Elyana likely thought I had been trying to stalk her or something—or even rape her, I don't know. I was in such a terrible situation—it's not as if I could really explain my way out of it. I mean, she caught me as I was just standing there, a stupefied looked of wonderment on my idiotic face. It was bad.

Just as soon as I looked up, Elyana was in front of me. She glared at me with bolts, and I felt like I was shrinking in stature as she looked at me.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she asked rhetorically. "You think that just because we've been friends for a couple weeks now, and we talk, that you can do something like that? What nerve do you have?"

"It was accident…" I said weakly… "I'm truly sorry…so sorry, please. I just…I feel so terrible."

"I don't know if I believe you. You could easily just say that was an accident—I don't even know. But I feel very uncomfortable talking to you now. You…you stupid, stupid man." She just stared at me again after that.

My heart was throbbing inside my chest. Her words really hurt me, and I was fully cognizant of my affection for her by this point—so I thought that at this point everything was just spiraling out of control.

At this awkward pause, I became fully aware of how different she looked now. She had shed her unflattering Jedi robes for more traditional clothes. She had on a turtleneck underneath a dark, rigid, unbuttoned jacket. She also had on very comfortable-looking boots and dark blue pants. Her chocolate brown hair was up and she even had some simple earrings on. She had gone all out to blend in, but she looked absolutely breathtaking. It was difficult for me to focus. When I looked at her, that image I saw in her room invaded my mind, no matter how hard I tried to force it out. And then when I tried to focus on the present, she looked positively stunning. She aroused a burning in my chest. There was something wholesomely sexual about the way she dressed—if that makes any sense. I'm struggling to convey the situation—but suffice it to say, I was in a whirlwind. I was a volcano of emotion.

"I'm just…so sorry," I said again. "It was an accident. I know you might not forgive me…but I didn't intend to do anything. I still want to be your friend…"

The words "I don't want to be your friend, I just want to be your lover" repeatedly danced through my head with a rhythmic cadence to them—as though I were drifting away on a cloud of reverb. I tried to force them away, but they wouldn't go.

She shifted her jaw sideways and looked at me, still somewhat accusingly, but a bit less hostile. She said, "I will…think. Just let me go out for now." I stepped aside, she said pointedly as she passed, "Don't follow me."

After she left, I slapped my forehead with my hand. I think I even slapped my own face several times. I was so frustrated. Why did I have to do such a stupid thing? That was the extent of my thoughts for that day. I was so attracted to this woman—it almost hurt. I could hardly anything else. So much had happened that day that my mind was about to break. I thought of her, and I thought of how I had really embarrassed her and myself. What a stupid predicament for a Jedi to be in, right?

Good thing I was drifting farther and farther away from the Jedi as the days wore on. I was in love with Elyana. I was associating myself with the "enemies" of the Republic—in Theodoric. And I was angry, truly furious, about that old woman I had met. She showed me the true side of the Order—the pain it is responsible for. And I knew then that I wanted desperately to find out what _had _happened to my family. Where were they? Did the Jedi know?


	6. Politics and Forgiveness

_Author's Notes: I neglected to do this last time, but I have to thank __**Gipper 40 **__and __**Captin Azza **__for reviewing the last couple chapters. You guys rock—thanks for taking the time out not only to read this mangled story but to also provide some constructive feedback. Especially Gipper—you've given me so much advice about the upcoming war part of this story that I feel like we could officially say that you co-wrote it. :P_

_  
So thanks a lot. Here's another update, complete with more awkward situations!_

**Politics and Forgiveness**

I had the opportunity to do a lot of thinking after that unfortunate encounter. I was not interrupted for some time, and had the luxury of dwelling on the situation in which I found myself. Although luxurious it certainly was not.

I was spinning. My Jedi beliefs were shaken. I had stumbled across Elyana…in that state…and felt a burning desire for her. This feeling was like a foreign phrase that I just could not comprehend. Why? I thought to myself. Why do I feel this longing for her? It was so ambiguous. I longed for her, and I don't know why. What would I do where she suddenly in my "possession"? Suppose I had her, then what?

I didn't know. Biology tends not to provide metaphysical answers like that. Religion addresses it, not science. I suppose, in a sense, I _did _know why I felt this sensation for her: my genes were stretching out, hoping to spread themselves for succeeding generations in a blind, evolutionary strategy for survival. But being a Jedi is to defeat this base impulse of our DNA. It is contrary to science; not in that these cannot coexist in truth, but that they cannot coexist in practice.

I should stop with those musings while I am ahead. The thing of it was this: obviously I would find myself needing Elyana if you look at it from a biological standpoint. But the problem was that I had never experienced this before. I had met women before, and I had not experienced this sensation. What, then, made her different? It wasn't solely because I had seen her…in an intimate way. Because I had felt strongly about her before that. But why? Why her? Science had forsaken me—I could ask it for answers, but there would be none.

And that left me with only the religion of the Jedi. Unfortunately, its teachings decreed that I was violating the Code. I was in error. One was not to be attracted to a woman. One was not to "want" her. But it wasn't like I expected.

I didn't "want" her simply because she's a woman—that I could have resisted, as many do. I wanted her because she was Elyana. It was different. I couldn't just tell myself that I had to ignore her. I couldn't just hope these feelings would go away. It was not a carnal, lustful thing, as people are wont to characterize it. I longed for a person—not for a feeling or an action.

It made it very difficult. I didn't know how to gauge these feelings. Could I just will them away? Is that what other Jedi did? But the other Jedi did not know Elyana…they didn't know about special she was.

What _now?_

I just did not have the answer to that. I needed someone to talk to—to try to sort out these feelings. Obviously Elyana was not a candidate. I could not talk to her about this, not yet. And besides, I thought she hated me at that point anyway.

That only left…Kalkannis.

I should have known by then that talking to him would have been an exercise in futility, but I tried anyway. I was desperate.

I met him—in our ridiculous civilian clothes—in the café next to the hotel lobby. It was a secluded place, tucked around a corner where those out front couldn't see it. It was nice because somehow the layout of the place prevented our voices from carrying, so conversations were very private.

I did not want to broach the topic too soon, though, so I let him talk first. He was hung up on Theodoric.

He said, "I have been thinking about our investigation."

I had almost forgot about that—our pretense for being on this planet in the first place.

"I am concerned about this Theodoric," he said, "I am thinking I should make mention of him in the report back to the Council."

I just shrugged, "I suppose you could—he doesn't seem like much of a point of interest to me."

"Didn't you hear his speech?" asked Kalkannis, "he was using blatantly anti-Republic rhetoric."

"Yes, but he's just a third-rate politician. He's a district representative—that's hardly anything in the grand scheme of things."

"Yes, but he's still dangerous. I am going to mention him. The Council may want us to investigate further."

"If we really wanted to go further," I said, taking a sip of coffee, "we should investigate the planet's senators—they are truly the ones to watch."

"Like Arnom?"

"Arnom, yes—or either of the other two: Delacroix and Ingres."

He looked at me oddly, said, "You are familiar with them?"

"No," I answered, "but I know their names. I did see Arnom once, though, on Coruscant."

"We should see if we could find out more about them."

I agreed.

He tried to pursue the conversation a bit further, but it began to stagnate. Eventually, I goaded him into changing the topic. I needed to talk about Elyana—it was almost compulsive. I felt so weak, though, when thinking about her. She had reduced me from a competent monk-warrior to a sniveling and cowardly shell of a man. It was…irritating. But I didn't blame her—it wasn't her fault.

He asked, "So, you said you needed help?"

I gulped, figuring now I had to explain all of this. I said, "I do. I don't know what to do about Elyana."

"Well, you said that that incident was only an accident. Did you apologize to her?"

"I tried," I said, "but that is not really what I mean."

"What do you mean?"

I tried to collect my breath and explain it. I said, "I get this weird feeling around her…it's like a sense of tremendous urgency. But when she's gone, it magnifies. I don't…understand it."

"I don't either," answered the man. "I've never experienced anything like that."

"I don't exactly know what it is. But it is overwhelming, and I can't chase it."

"You should probably tell her about it," he said.

Here I was trying to be vague because of my fear of simply coming out and saying that I was falling hopelessly in love with this girl, but Kalkannis was utterly clueless.

"I can't," I said, and then gulped as I was about to go way out on a limb, "I think…I think I am developing an attraction towards her."

That sure sounded clunky as I said it. It was like metal was rolling around in my mouth and then _that_ came spilling out.

Kalkannis…the look on his face was appalling. He was horrified. He looked like I had just killed his pet. He was completely and utterly disgusted. And it disgusted me.

He resisted the urge to vomit all over the table and settled himself down. "This is not good," he said. "I knew this would happen. And I knew that your intrusion on her could not have been purely accidental."

"It _was!_" I shouted. "It was an accident! That had nothing to do with it! I said I _think _I am attracted to her. I don't know—I have never experienced this before. Maybe I'm just misinterpreting it." In truth, that was somewhat of a cautious hope on my part—maybe I was just confused. My gut told me that I wasn't, however. I then asked, "Have you ever felt that? Do you know what to do about it?"

He looked even more shocked and disgusted than he had only moments before. "Of course not," he said, "love leads to the dark side!"

I asked him, "What does that _mean_? What is love anyway? How do _we _know what it is?"

Surprisingly, he tried to answer my question. He said, "Love is what happens when a man and woman sleep together—it's like a genetic bonding mechanism that brings them closer together. It breeds passion—and passion leads to the dark side."

I was confounded. Clearly the man had no idea what he was talking about. In describing love, he seemed to have combined lovers' affection and oxytocin together. He was totally lost. From his perspective, the Jedi ban seemed to be on sex rather than love—although he was hardly differentiating the two. Who is the carnal creature of lust now?

I said, "I'm not…sure that's quite accurate. But if it is, then I'm certainly not in love with Elyana, because I have not slept with her and have no intention to." Maybe that was not entirely true, but it sounded good.

This seemed to calm him down, but he said, "How do I know you have no intention to? You tried to sneak into her room while she was undressed."

"I told you! That was an accident!" I was practically shouting. I'm sure the other patrons thought I was quite insane—voices didn't carry, but shouts did. "I did not _intend _to do that. I would never do that. And I would never force myself on her—I care about her too much for that."

If you could see the look on his face that last comment elicited, it was almost priceless. There I was saying that my affection for Elyana prevented me from trying to take advantage of her for sex. It was something completely foreign to him.

Here is evidence of Kalkannis as a total fool—it is such an unbelievably stupid tragedy. It's not even entirely his fault. He did not know any better. Sure he was slow, but the Jedi conditioned him to hold these ridiculously unrealistic beliefs about love. I mean, a grade school kid knows more about it than he did. And we Jedi are supposed to be "wise." What the hell do they teach? I mean, I was woefully confused concerning love—but at least I didn't have it mixed up with a neurotransmitter. Talking to him was not going to help.

Kalkannis's mouth opened and closed several times, and I'm certain he wanted to say that me caring about Elyana was also of the dark side—but even he realized that that statement just didn't make sense. He just said, "I think you should meditate on these matters. Also, we should hurry to complete our investigation and get back to Coruscant."

I tried to change the conversation, asked, "Can we go back? I thought we had to wait for Gamaliel's signal?"

Kalkannis had clearly forgotten about this.

"Oh yeah," he admitted, "I guess we can't go anywhere yet."

And that was that.

I got out of there quickly. I couldn't get Kalkannis to leave me alone until I promised to try to investigate Arnom, so I had to do that first.

I contacted Theodoric and told him I would like to discuss something with him. He responded rather quickly and we met later that afternoon. He was annoyingly excited to have the opportunity to try to influence my beliefs again, so he was eager to engage me in conversation and debate. He was a bit more on his game than he had been the last time I saw him.

We debated for some time while walking throughout Thoyahna (I do not remember where we were going) and it was a very animated exchange—at least on his part. I cannot recall all of the topics, but I distinctly remember, at one point, Theodoric imploring me to "consider it from the opposite perspective."

As if to punctuate his sentence, we turned a corner and I saw, implanted into the red brick beneath a bad parody of a stately home, graffiti that read "End Coruscant Rule".

That image probably did more for me than Theodoric's sophistry ever did, and I knew it was genuine because I saw several more of them in the time I was there.

Eventually I had to rein him in. I said, "As much as I am enjoying this political discussion, I wanted to ask you about your senators."

"Ah," he said, "they are good men—what about them?"

"Well," I began, trying to sound authoritative, "I am here, essentially, as an investigator for the Jedi Order. We were supposed to look for possible culprits in the terrorist attacks on the Temple. Or at least leads."

"Do you think they are involved?" he said, feigning ignorance.

"I don't think so, but my idiot partner does—so I have to look into it."

He rather shocked me with his next statement. He said simply, "Would you like to ask them?"

"You mean…personally?" I stuttered.

"Of course," he answered smoothly, "I am good friends with Senator Ingres—I could arrange a meeting."

He convinced me that this was possible. After a while, we managed to get to the parliament building, which was situated in the same area as all of the political structures in the city. A secretary informed us that Ephraim Delacroix and Dominik Ingres were out on an incredibly late lunch break and that we would have to wait for them to return. Theodoric, however, was not dissuaded and told me that we could easily drop in on them during their break. I was apprehensive, but he assured me it would be all right.

We tracked them to a local, rather ritzy restaurant in the area. We took a couple obscure passageways and opened doors that should have been locked to arrive at a secluded racket that was situated above the real restaurant. They took their food separately, away from the masses.

As we walked in to the place, I was astounded at the blatantly upper-class vibe it emanated. Everything was bright red, gold, or white. There were several confusing paintings decorating the walls, shouting the sophistication of the room at me. In the middle of the room, next to a bust of one of Doliani's emperors, was a little, golden table with two men situated on either side.

I didn't know what they were doing here, as they had long since finished eating. One, a rather plump man with red cheeks and deep-set, black pea eyes set deep within his fleshy face, was enjoying a cigar, much to the chagrin of the thinner, well-dressed man sitting across from him.

"Theo!" exclaimed the fat man, pulling the cigar out of his mouth and laughing jovially, "what are you doing here?"

"Figured I'd drop in," he replied, "as I was in the area."

"And who is this with you?"

Theodoric gestured to me, said, "This Aetius Glendower—he's from off-planet. Aetius," he turned to them, "this is Senator Delacroix." The thin, respectable man regarded me with a quiet nod. "And this is Senator Ingres." The fat man smiled.

"Please, please," said Ingres, "call me Dominik. I've known Theo for years, hell, I taught him everything he knows about politics. Can't recall the last time he called me by my title—the same goes for you!" he gestured to me, "a friend of his is a friend of mine."

"It's good to meet you," I said. I felt totally out of my element in this place; like some kind of bewildered spectator at a political zoo.

Ingres was an excitable person, you could tell by the way he spoke. He spun his hand around, trying to draw us closer, said, "Pull up a chair!"

We sat.

"I was just telling Ephraim here," he said, "about my niece. She was off hauling some of her belongings to Corellia—studying abroad, you know—when the customs officials at the spaceport informed her that all of her luggage was lost in transit. All of it! She could not even inquire as to what happened to it, they would not tell her. But her things were simply gone—including all of her research for her thesis. Days later she finds out that her luggage had accidentally been loaded onto another freighter, which crashed on a remote planet because of an electric storm. Her things were lost, and now the officials refuse to pay up! They are chalking it up to an act of nature or some such nonsense."

"Another injustice," muttered Theodoric.

Delacroix added reasonably, "It makes some sense—traveling is a messy business, but that they would not consider reimbursing her is a bit disturbing."

"Yes, yes!" continued Ingres, "an outrage! A genuine outrage! We are, after all, part of the same country and general economic system. Why should they just brush her off like that? Would they deny someone from Coruscant? I sincerely doubt it. They're all countrymen over _there_. It is discrimination, my friend—pure and simple!"

I just politely nodded my head. Apparently the political strife was manifesting itself in a thousand different ways. They continued bemoaning the horrible state of affairs until Delacroix asked me pointedly: "What do you do?"

I almost answered that I was a Jedi, but caught myself before committing what would have been a horrible lapse in judgment. I had to think quickly, however, and was barely able to stutter an answer. "I'm a diplomat," I responded.

Curiosity overtook them, and Delacroix asked, "Whom do you represent?"

"Interests on Tatooine," I answered. Instantly I regretted it—so much for quick thinking. I think I saw Theodoric's shoulders slouch as I said this.

I was met with blanks stares. Ingres' beady little eyes bored into me, wracking my nerves. This went on for what felt like a minute before he suddenly threw his head back and began laughing uproariously. "A jokester!" he exclaimed, "very good!" He guffawed for a while longer before getting out a handkerchief and wiping what appeared to be tears away from the bags under his tiny eyes. He said, in between sucking for air, "I love it when strangers are unafraid of humor. Indeed, humor is a way of life. Bravo, my good man!"

Delacroix did not seem amused. He just stared at me. I grinned, trying to pass off the statement as an intentional joke.

They seemed to be waiting again. As this momentary spasm of laughter had bought me some time, I had a better answer this time. "Actually, I'm a journalist," I said. "I mostly do freelance—right now I'm writing for a mid-level news-hologram on Coruscant. I'm writing a story now on that terrorist attack on the Jedi Temple from several months back."

"Terrible," said Ingres, "a tragedy that was. To think that there are those out there who, from our side of the argument, are resorting to terrorism to try to make an impact. It grieves me to see this. I almost wept when I heard about that attack, as many died and I am sure it did our cause only harm."

Delacroix stared at me longer. I definitely felt some loathing coming from his direction. He did not seem pleased with these questions.

Ingres continued, "If you want information, you should talk to Senator Arnom—he was on Coruscant when it happened. Of course, now that the session is over, he's back here with the rest of us—though I can't say I know where he is now."

Theodoric also seemed displeased with the way the conversation was going. He tried to hide it, but I felt it there. The Force is useful for gauging people's emotions that way. You can't get specifics, but you can see tendencies. It's difficult to interpret, but sometimes you get lucky.

"We shouldn't dwell on such morbid news if we can help it," he said. I was annoyed since this was the whole reason I had come to see them, but if I had learned anything, it was that I had to talk to Arnom if I wanted to know more. Fortunately for them, I really did not care as much about this investigation as I should've. Elyana was on my mind, and pointless small talk was on my tongue.

Delacroix then tried to probe further and asked, "Where are you from, boy?"

"Cstephon," I answered.

Ingres grimaced then, and I didn't know why. He said, "You must be pretty upset about events lately."

"What," I asked, confused, "what do you mean?"

"You don't know?" he asked.

Delacroix scoffed, said, "He must not be much of a journalist if he doesn't even know what's happening on his own planet."

I hoped, then, that I would finally find out what had happened with my planet—and maybe even my family. The question had been an important one, and now I would find out.

I was, though, completely lost. Cstephon _never _made headlines. The planet was nothing. It only had one Senator, and it had taken us decades to get just the one. The only noteworthy thing on it was a massive nuclear reactor amidst the one big, capital city. And this was what Ingres's news concerned.

He said, "Well, that big reactor they have in Alesia melted down. Most of the city has been wiped out—radiation is everywhere."

My family! Now I had my answer!

I was shocked, I stuttered, "What…are they doing anything? What's happening?"

"The Republic," answered Delacroix, "has been stalling." He almost hissed when pronouncing the last word. "They are hesitant. They seem to think that the risk is too high to go in there full force. The relief effort has been…minimal."

"But what about survivors?!" I asked, "my family is there!" Sure, I hadn't seen them in twenty-five years, but they were still my family. And…Elyana's family was there too…

Ingres shrugged, said, "I don't know. There has not been much relief. It _is _a radioactive zone now."

"But they can't just leave them there!"

Delacroix then said, "Of course they can. The Republic has no obligation to Cstephon. You have to remember, the Republic is not a country—it's a corporation. Why should they care about _you_? Even as you work for them your family suffers."

That was harsh. I was really rattling, though. It doesn't matter how estranged you are from your family—when they're in trouble, you feel it. But there was literally _nothing _I could do about it. I had to just go along with it. But this injustice showed just how wicked the Republic was. If they couldn't see the value in human life, then they did not deserve to be in power. It doesn't matter if it is "economical" or not, saving lives is part of the job. I thought that that was what the Republic was all about. And the Jedi too…but nothing was happening!

They spoke for a little while about inane for some time. My mind and heart both hurt. I desperately wanted to take my mind off of the bad news, I wanted to ask them something, anything, that would change the topic. I would be able to think about this later.

"How long have you known Theo?" I asked. I felt odd using his abbreviated name, but he did it to me, so I would return the favor.

Ingres didn't notice how flustered I was, and answered, "Since he was but a strapping young lad at the local university—why, ten years ago now. I've been his mentor along the way. I'm grooming him, you see—protégé and my successor, this is my hope. He will make a fine senator one day."

Theodoric only smiled, but seemed to be a bit embarrassed by the lauding he was getting.

"Theo," said Ingres, "can convince anyone of _anything_. I've seen it happen!" He leaned in close to me, as though he were telling some kind of secret and started excitedly, "Why, there was one time when, during crunch time of one of his classes, this lazy ne'er-do-well accosted Theo and begged him to write a paper for him. He even offered to pay!" Ingres than began snorting laughter again, said in between shotgun blasts of merriment, "When Theo was done with him, that boy had written his own paper, paid one hundred credits to do it, and Theo used some of his ideas for his own project! Now _that_ is being resourceful! Excellent senator! You'll make an _excellent _senator!"

"Thanks, Dominik," Theodoric managed to utter amidst his embarrassment.

"But my how the time flies," said Ingres, going back to his previous conversation, "that was years ago, too, now that I think of it." He paused, then said, "Theo—you're getting older than I realized. Why haven't you found a woman to settle down with yet? That is crucial to the career of a senator. One must be a family man. People vote for family men."

"I have no time," began Theodoric, "for family matters. My life is my work."

"Come now, Theo!" said Ingres, "surely you see the wisdom in what I say?"

Delacroix then spoke, for the first time in seeming ages. He grunted brusquely and without making eye contact, "If he can convince anyone of anything—he can convince a girl to marry him."

I think that was sarcasm, but this Delacroix fellow was extremely hard to gauge.

Ingres started laughing joyously again, said, "True, true!" He slapped his pudgy hand onto the table and then slapped his knee in agreement. Abruptly, however, he turned to me and said, "What do you think, Aetius my boy? Think Theo should settle down with a nice girl?"

I did not know what to say, so I responded vaguely, "Women…are not my area of expertise."

"Damn shame, my boy!" said Ingres. I believe he wanted me to agree with him.

Theodoric used this opportunity to shift all of the suffering he was enduring throughout the course of this conversation and dump it onto me. He said snidely, "Yeah—Len has trouble with women. You should hear what he did the other day."

"What—ho! Tales of intrigue!" gasped Ingres, "care to inform us?"

"I—I—uh…well," I stuttered.

Theodoric finished for me, and he relished doing it. He smiled mischievously as he said, "Well, there's this girl, a colleague of his, that he seems to have developed a very strong affection for. He's been too afraid to admit this to her or himself, but he complicated matters by, when they were working together, walking in on her while she was changing clothes."

Ingres exploded in laughter again. I felt my blood boil. I did not want to stand for this humiliation. Especially when Theodoric presumed to know so much about me. The only thing that stayed my hand from striking him down out of pure rage was the subtle indoctrination of the Jedi code, telling me to embrace peace. I couldn't fire back. And even so, I was astounding about, ironically, how right he was.

"Well, that's quite the sticky situation you've gotten yourself into!" said Ingres as eventually the whole story was related to him. I was a little disturbed that Theodoric knew so much about it. Perhaps he had spies…or he had talked to Elyana. Most likely the latter. "I believe you should try to apologize and work it out," he said.

"It might not be worth it," grunted Delacroix.

"Attractive girl?" asked Ingres.

Theodoric answered, "Indeed. _Very_ much so."

I clenched my fists. I felt angry about the whole thing. Here they were gauging Elyana's attractiveness, and reasoning about whether or not it was worth trying to make up with her. What did they know? Her beauty was a secret that was kept by me! No one else knew! It was a Jedi conspiracy—the most incredible woman in the galaxy was held tightly within their steel grip. These other men knew nothing!

"Then I'd say it's worth it," replied Ingres.

I just sighed.

"Tell you what, lad," he said, "take these credits and go buy her some flowers. Take them to her, fall to the ground and kiss her feet. And then offer to buy her dinner. When she selects the most expensive thing on the menu, make sure she knows she'll have to repay you for your kindness," he then winked sickeningly at me, "later…if you catch my drift, lad."

What wicked men! Concerned only with physical gratification, however they could get it.

I took his money nonetheless and decided that the flowers might be a decent idea anyway. Now that I look back, I am almost certain that they were joking and I was not seriously supposed to do what they suggested. But they didn't know they were talking to a Jedi who had no experience in dealing with the fairer sex…at all.

Delacroix eventually bolted, but Ingres tried to get me and Theodoric to stay for dinner. I didn't want to…but some part of me told me to stay. I actually somewhat liked this Ingres fellow. Despite the fact that he was a politician, he seemed a friendly sort. And I finally grew a spine and decided that I needed to ask him more about my family.

"Cstephon…" I said quietly, "what else do you know?"

"Only some details, my boy, but I'd be happy to tell you what I know."

I sat down and listened with him. He filled my head with stories about Cstephon, about the injustice there and on Onderon. On Sullust. On Muunilist. It was everywhere. Doliani was not alone. I realized how expansive this problem was. And I eventually realized how inevitable the revolution would be…and it would likely be soon…

I sat there and listened and talked with him and Theodoric for hours until eventually I knew it was time to leave. I bade them goodbye and thanked Ingres for his help. I felt that I had finally found friends, people I could maybe even relate to. And they even tried to help me with Elyana—sort of.

Regardless of their intents, I actually heeded some of their advice, and several hours later I showed up in front of Elyana's closed hotel room door with an unreasonably large bouquet of these bizarrely colorful indigenous flowers. This time I made sure that I knocked, loudly and forcefully.

She opened the door and once again her supernatural beauty floored me. Now that it was late at night and she had retired, she had let her hair down and was wearing her overcoat over what I assume was sleeping attire. I had not seen her hair down before, and it was quite lovely. Of course, any way she wore it was lovely. It didn't matter.

As she regarded me, her eyes grew incredibly large. She was trying to figure out why I had a giant bouquet with me, and she was also surprised by its size in the first place.

"…flowers?" she asked, bewildered.

"Elyana," I said, "I am so sorry for what happened. I bought you these to apologize." It was awkwardly formal, but I couldn't speak any other way it seemed. "And I want you to know how important your friendship is to me."

She moved to the side and motioned for me to set them down a few feet away from the door. As I did, I looked back to her to await her response.

She said at length, "All right, Lenny." There was a condescending pause. "I realize that it was an accident. I was angry earlier, but there's nothing we can do about it now. I know you're sincerely sorry, and as a Jedi I am not supposed to harbor anger, and I am supposed to forgive you." She looked straight into my eyes and it was extremely intimidating as I hung on her answer. She said, "So I forgive you. It's done."

"And we're still friends?" I asked.

"Yes," she answered, "we are."

Naturally, I was quite pleased with this. I bade her goodnight, thanked her for…I don't even know, I just thanked her.

I realize that, ironically, the only reason she allowed me within ten feet of her after was probably because she thought that I—being a Jedi—had no ulterior motive or romantic feelings for her at all. It was purely an accident, nothing more. How far that is from the truth. If she knew how I felt about her then, she would have tried to distance herself immediately. It was almost bordering on obsession. She would have taken the first shuttle off planet and made sure she never saw me again. But she didn't know—not yet. The problem, now that I had successfully earned forgiveness, was not something I could describe. My feelings for her were unrequited. And I wanted to remedy it. That is the only way it could be described. There was no sensible plan. I was not even conscious of what, exactly, I wanted. Some kind of strange validation, but I could not describe it.

But that night, things were okay, because I had been forgiven for my stupidity. I went back to my room and slept well.


	7. Discoveries

_Author's Notes: What ho? An update? It's a miracle!_

**Discoveries**

Now that I had gotten Elyana to speak to me again…I had to tell her about Cstephon.

She didn't take the news well. Not at all.

She remembered her sister and her family. It wasn't some vague idea about injustice like it was for me. She was genuinely afraid and angry. Her mother, father, and sister were all there. She knew that. And she _remembered _them. It was likely that they were now dead. And still we didn't know how the Republic was going to deal with it.

We were quiet for a while, and I didn't talk to her for a few days after that. It was brutal. I began to…hate the Republic. And slowly this became apparent to me.

I had a horrific epiphany some time after this. I suddenly realized what this whole longing for Elyana was doing to me. I was not part of the Jedi anymore. A Jedi does not feel affection or love for someone—that violates the code. I don't know if you're familiar with this kind of meteoric destruction, but imagine if everything you knew about what you believed was destroyed. Not exactly pleasant.

The Jedi Order was my faith—what do you do when you willfully defy it? In desiring Elyana, I was directly opposing the Order. But the Jedi teachings are _true_, right? If they are true, and I am defying them, what does that make me? I had been taught my whole life that this was the pinnacle of wisdom in galactic form—the Jedi were wise beyond reason. What could I do? The Jedi were my life, and now I was outside of them? I had made myself an enemy of the Order, and I didn't try to. It just happened.

That fear that maybe you're wrong…that maybe you've doomed yourself…starts to creep up your spine…

I spent a whole night lying awake in bed one night trying to sort this out. I needed someone to talk to, but there was no one. Who would understand? Elyana? Maybe, but that would have been a disaster. Kalkannis? Certainly not. Other Jedi? They would try to "correct" me. And a non-Jedi wouldn't know what I was so worked up about.

I had nothing except a guideline. The list of rules that a Jedi must follow. I had the code and that was it.

How can a code comfort you? In the night, alone, you are desperately searching for answers to the greatest of life's problems, and all you have is a fucking code.

_There is no emotion, there is peace._

_There is no ignorance, there is knowledge._

_There is no passion, there is serenity._

_There is no chaos, there is harmony._

_There is no death, there is the Force._

What was I supposed to do with this? Was this comfort? Was it salvation? I could repeat this to myself a thousand times and still I would be left in the same twisted agony of self-doubt and confusion that I started with.

No, this would not save me. A structured set of guidelines is no way to live life. There is no great "equation" we can use for this purpose. We are not math. We are not numbers or variables in an equation. We are people, all of us. Equations do not save us. We are people, and we can only relate to people. We can't live by a code—it's too difficult, or rather, it is impossible. It's impersonal, it's distant, and most of the time it is not even relevant.

And then what happens with shades of gray? What happens when you find yourself in a situation in which the code is inapplicable, like I did?

It's over.

I realized this, and I realized that I was no longer a Jedi. I hadn't been for quite some time.

It's such a horrid thing to undergo this kind of transformation. I had abandoned my faith for a more realistic understanding of the universe. The Jedi were flawed, errant, and hypocritical. I knew this, but I didn't want to admit it. And I didn't want to have to face the issue. But I had to. I had disavowed the code a thousand times, it was already too late.

One would expect that this kind of epiphany would herald feelings of freedom and joy, but let me tell you, that is not the case—not at all. Instead, I was overcome with feelings of terrible dread and fear. I had lost the one thing I had believed to be true in my life. It had abandoned me when I needed it, and then I saw it exposed as a sham—nothing but a twisted and manipulated falsehood perpetuated by generations of unwilling slaves. I was afraid, because I was outside of the Jedi religion, and that offered no safety to me. It was terrifying.

But eventually I came around to understanding what this meant for me. Without the Jedi and their guidelines? How would I be after that? It means that everything is permitted now.

There was no reason _not _to desire Elyana anymore. I became a normal man. Look at me now. I defied the Order. I fought it. I resisted it.

Who gave me the authority to reject the Jedi "wisdom"? How was I able to drink up the sea? Who gave me the cloth to wipe away the entire horizon? What did I do when I unchained the planet from its sun? Do I hear nothing of the gravediggers who are burying the Jedi? I had no authority to do this. And that is when I realized something.

There was no authority to be granted.

The Jedi were the last vestige of an authority greater than the individual. They were, as I have said, the old rotten heart that sustained the Republic. They held sway because they held the keys to knowledge and "wisdom" and they locked it up tight. But I rejected the Jedi mantra, and therefore rejected the hold they had on the galaxy.

_I _was the authority. Not them. And then I could do as I saw fit. And soon I would realize that the defunct and superfluous Jedi Order was no longer needed in the galaxy. It had served its purpose and it needed to be dealt with for society to progress.

I…

Coughing, once again, has stayed my hand. I re-read that last section and see that I went overboard with my metaphysical explanations for my choices. Do not let my words confuse you; I did not arrive at this conclusion overnight, no matter what the previous passage seems to entail. It was a long, drawn-out process. I learned of the treachery of the Republic and discovered the failings of the Jedi at a snail's pace, but I did find them. And when I did, I endured those very thoughts. Slowly, through this time. But some time after talking to Elyana about Cstephon, and lamenting the most assured loss of my family…I realized that I _did _oppose the Order. I wanted nothing more than to leave them.

I will spare you any more of this rambling and move back to the important part of this book: the story itself. At this exact moment in the tale, I was still torn. I was half the time a Jedi, but then half the time I was not. It was hard to balance between the two. You cannot have two masters.

I only have one more important thing to mention: my rejection of the Jedi Order was not because of Elyana. It was not because of love either. Love did not "lead me to the dark side", as those Jedi arbiters are wont to say. Love opened my eyes to the absurdity of the Jedi way of life. The rest took care of itself. It could have been anything that led me to that conclusion, but love was not integral.

That is my only plea. Don't _ever_ once think that I rebelled from the Order and the Republic because of love. Or because of Elyana. That is simply not true.

Now, I spent several days—maybe even weeks—after the meeting with Delacroix and Ingres, attempting to orchestrate a meeting with Arnom. I was not incredibly concerned with solving the mystery behind the terrorist attack on Coruscant, but I was more interested than earlier, and Arnom would be an interesting man to talk to. He was, after all, there when it happened, as I was.

Still, however, I was preoccupied with Elyana.

I had managed to work my way back into her good graces after considerable effort. We got back to talking comfortably again, and I enjoyed hearing her analyses of the Jedi. She was open-minded and somewhat freethinking, so I relished these discussions. In the midst of questioning the Jedi, I needed someone else who would be at least a little understanding. I still dared not tell her of the battles I was raging against the Jedi philosophy, mostly because that involved my confession of love for her. But I tried to cloak my miserable fight in conversation that was more agreeable. One of the first things I had to talk to her about was what happened on Cstephon. She was as worried, if not more, than I was, but there was nothing for us to do. We shared the feeling of helplessness and dread, and though it was not pleasant, it was something that we had together. It actually…brought us closer, as deviant as that may sound. Through tragedy we became closer.

In this time, Elyana actually helped me a lot. As I have said, hers was a brilliance that just seemed unfair. People weren't supposed to be this incredible. We are lucky if we have one or two talents, but for her to be so interesting, smart, and on top of it, breathtakingly beautiful, was simply not fair to everyone else. But I was not about to complain.

We started talking more and more as the days dragged on. Being marooned on a world like Doliani, where we had no one we knew but each other, tends to do that. We were very close. She even confided one or two secrets to me that I would be remiss to write here. But she grew to trust me and tell me anything. It was inevitable that something would happen.

And it did.

Andury Kalkannis, in his imbecility, was growing more and more suspicious of my "motives" concerning her. He was dim-witted enough to not fully comprehend what I told him about being confused about my "attraction" towards her. But eventually even he could figure out that I was in love with her. I had completely shirked my duties as an "investigator", and my schedule revolved around when I could talk to her. That was what I lived for. Using his incredible powers of observation, Kalkannis discerned that my confession of attraction towards her and my willingness to spend every waking moment around her were not coincidental.

So he decided to do something about it.

I found out what during conversation with Elyana. I was meeting her for lunch before I, ironically, had finally been able to orchestrate a meeting with Arnom to ask about the terrorist attack. I had just once tried to follow through on my responsibilities and then this happened.

Elyana came into the restaurant in a hurry. She regarded me with a wary and distant expression as she walked towards me. Her large, blue eyes trying mightily to gauge my intentions. She looked even more beautiful than usual to me. Her somewhat frantic demeanor probably drew out the same emotions from me, and it made her seem even more stunning.

She sat down right across from me and then said bluntly in that amazing voice of hers, "I just had an interesting conversation with Andury."

And I knew right then that he had told her about my "feelings" for her. He had likely misrepresented them terribly, but he had done it nonetheless. She seemed surprised. Despite her intelligence, she had likely not figured out that I was so enthralled with her because of her similar inexperience in this part of life. She just simply didn't consider it.

"We…" she said hesitantly, "are going to have to do something…to…solve this."

Her manner of speech was certainly weird, and she seemed to be very flustered while talking about it. She was more emotional than I was used to seeing her. As for me, I knew this would happen eventually, but that didn't stop me from turning paler than the white columns in Thoyahna. My stomach leapt into my throat. I knew that this was it. I was going to have to tell her how I felt. Though Kalkannis had likely let slip a little gossip, he could not have anticipated how intense my feelings were for her.

There was an awkward exchange in which I asked "what she was talking about", but the time for feigning ignorance was over. I had to just come out and say it.

"Yana," I began, using the pet name that I had grown fond of addressing her with, "I have to…I mean." I then stopped and took a deep breath. I hastily grabbed a glass of water and drained it, as my mouth had grown dry. I noticed that my hands were really shaking as I held the glass. I almost dropped it when I set it down, I was that nervous.

Eventually I resigned to just saying it. I looked her in the eyes, those wonderful cyan eyes, and just said as calmly as possible:

"I love you."

There, not so hard, right?

She seemed to be literally blown backwards by this revelation. She leaned back and sunk down in her chair. Her chin was barely above the table level, as she was quite short. Her eyes had grown even larger than normal as she tried to comprehend what had just been said to her. I saw them dart back and forth, as though the appropriate response would be floating around behind me for her to see.

"More than anything," I continued, making the situation even more hyperbolic and difficult.

"What…" she croaked almost inaudibly before gaining a little more resolve, "what…do you expect me to say to that?"

"I don't know," I admitted.

She stuttered something that I couldn't hear.

"I do love you, Yana," I repeated. Now that the confession was out, it felt good to say it. I probably would have said it again had she not finally responded.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, as though it literally hurt her to have this conversation. She looked to be in pain, and she said, "Lenny…you don't even know what that means…"

She slowly opened her eyes and looked at me almost askance, overcome with a sort of melancholy that I had never before seen on her. She embodied tragedy, and it was horrifying. Her face had fallen like a house of cards. The color had disappeared from her cheeks, and her lower lip looked to be quivering. It was a disturbing image, not the kind you would expect if all you knew were those romantic holovids.

I answered, "I do know what it means, and I know it's true. I just…can't fight it. I don't even know what to do, but I know what I feel. I just…want to be with you…I can't even explain it…"

She leaned forward and put her hands on her face, covering it up completely, as though I had just informed her of some kind of terrible tragedy. Though for a Jedi…this was a tragedy. "Please…Lenny," she whimpered, "don't do this to me…"

I panicked. I was afraid of how she would react, and it seemed to be going so horribly that I just opened my mouth and let fly the first thing that entered my mind. Unfortunately, the first thing was a horrible continuation of me trying to prove that I really did love her. "I'd do anything for you," I said, "even di—"

"_Stop it!_" she suddenly cried out with tremendous volume. The small café we were in ceased activity. Her voice had smashed through the pleasant environment and completely shattered it. A plate fell and broke. The cook and cashier both looked at us from behind the counter. The other patrons stopped their conversations and glanced over to our little, out of the way table.

She nervously touched her bottom lip with shaking fingers as she tried to think of what to do. She laughed slightly, a somewhat disconcerting nervous tic of hers, and tried to smile and look normal for everyone who was staring at her.

She then looked back at me with red eyes. I remember being shocked and thinking, "Is she…crying? Because of what I said?"

She tried to whisper, "Just…please stop, don't…don't do this. I just…I have to go…" She tried to get up quickly and accidentally knocked her light chair over. She quickly set it up, tried to straighten herself out and then rushed out of the café with everyone gawking.

Everyone glared at me awkwardly for a few moments before slowly returning to their previous conversations, though some of them continued to chance fleeting glances in my direction.

I had never felt as horrible in my life as I did right then. I did not even know what I had done to her. She was normally very composed, but I had totally destroyed that. I had not even considered the effects of saying such things to her. As a Jedi, she did not expect that from me. And since I was forcing these feelings into the forefront, with her as the catalyst, she had likely felt like _she _was forsaking the Order, too. She must have thought that she did something wrong. That if she had gotten a friend of hers to fall for her, she must have been behaving sinfully, that perhaps she had been in violation of the code and not known it.

I had shaken her confidence and reduced her to wreck, forcing her to question the code just as I had, but in far more traumatic a fashion. I had, probably, destroyed her religion as well as mine. And she did not deserve to have that happen to her.

It was a very messy situation. And I suppose my life could be relayed as a sort of "what not to do" self-help book for dealing with women. I had no clue what I was doing. But she didn't either, and that made us even.

The worst thing was that after that debacle I still had to go find Arnom. There was no way I could reschedule, that man was impossible to get a hold of. So, instead of just brooding alone somewhere, I had to trek out into the city and go to the government quarter.

I managed to get to his office in time, but barely. It was an achievement for me to even be there, as I certainly did not want to be. My mind was elsewhere. I wondered where Elyana was and what she was doing. What would possibly happen between us?

By this time, I didn't care at all about our "investigation." In truth, the only reason I went was to prolong our business on that planet so that maybe I could still talk to Elyana. If I could have…I might have abandoned the Jedi after talking with her about Cstephon. But I couldn't leave them, not while she was still a Jedi. She was my one link to the Order. With her still with them…I would be too. I would never leave her. I hope you can appreciate the irony in this situation. Love _kept _me tentatively allied with the Jedi. How's that for an unlikelihood?

I don't even remember waiting for Arnom or going into his office. I was just suddenly there, seated across from him. He had a very large desk that seemed to have just been hewn out of a tree only a week before. You could smell the wood. Or I thought I could.

He was the same charismatic man I remembered seeing on Coruscant. His eyes were especially intimidating. He was older, probably over sixty, and had white hair that was a bit unkempt, flattened down over his forehead. But he fit right in on this planet.

"You wanted to ask me about the bombing?" he said in a very deep, throaty voice, "that is what Theodoric tells me."

"Yes," I said distantly, "I was there when it happened too, but I am doing research for an investigative news piece on the explosion. I know you were there too so I—"

"I find it odd," he began, completely cutting me off, though there was no way I would interrupt him, "that you would come all the way out here to Doliani to write a news article, but your profession does not concern me—lies or truth, it doesn't really matter. However, I am interested that you would seek out the senators of this planet and ask them. Why would you think a senator would wager everything on a foolhardy endeavor like that?"

I really didn't have an answer. I mumbled some answer that I cannot recall, but Arnom interrupted me and supplied one. He asked, "Instinct?"

"I…suppose," I answered. I did not want to reveal my position as a Jedi. I didn't know how he'd react to that. It was best to leave him in the dark.

I thought he was going to reprimand me for wasting his time, but to my surprise, he sighed deeply and then said, "Your instincts serve you right. One of our senators was indeed behind the attacks." It seemed to grieve him to admit this.

"Who?" I asked.

A voice from behind startled me. "It's Ingres," said the youthful man. As I jumped out of my chair I turned to see that Theodoric was standing behind me, a somewhat devious smile on his face.

"Did you follow me?" I asked, rather confused by his presence.

Neither of them paid the question any heed. Arnom put his hands on his forehead and said, "Indeed, it is Ingres. Theodoric found out about it a short time ago, and he just relayed the information to me only yesterday. As of now we're considering our options."

"Ingres?" I asked incredulously, "but I talked to him…he was totally against what happened."

"What better cover?" asked Theodoric, "he was trying to put up a front. There's no way he'd openly support such actions, especially with an off-worlder like you in his presence. But he slipped up. I found everything. He's been involved in a lot of dirty business, underworld crime rings, money-laundering schemes. You name it. And he seems to have played a major role in coordinating the attack."

"That is…"

Again, I was not able to finish. Arnom said, "I am thinking that, in order to maintain at least some semblance of good relations with the Republic, we should turn him over to the authorities. Provided you have the proof, of course."

"Aetius can handle that," said Theodoric with a menacing tone.

"What?" asked Arnom, "what is he going to do?"

"He's the authorities. Aetius is a Jedi."

Arnom's eyes slanted as he squinted at me. "Doesn't dress or talk like a Jedi." He regarded me warily, said, "Take this pencil."

He held up a pencil in his hand, so I casually pulled it out and brought through the air to my own hand.

"Well," he said, "then I can turn him over to you." He grunted, said, "Now, leave me be. I have things to attend to. You two can handle this."

I left quickly with Theodoric beside me.

"Ingres?" I asked, still surprised.

"Yes, it is a shock," said Theodoric.

"This must be hard for you, he is your mentor."

"Yes, it is very hard."

There was something that just seemed disingenuous about the whole thing. His attitude was far too casual. I was actually broken up about this—I actually liked Ingres, I didn't want to think of him as a murderer. Though I did not actually consider what this calm attitude entailed until later. I suggested arresting Ingres right then. I would have done it, too. Despite my opposition to the Order, I still would do their bidding because of Elyana. I would serve the Jedi…for her. It was a hard situation to be in. I was not part of the Order or the Republic. But I _had _to do what they wanted. For love.

"We should go after him," I said.

"Not yet," Theodoric replied hastily, "he might suspect something. I sort of…broke into his office to learn this. Later. I'll give you a signal, then you can go get him. I'll also need to assemble the evidence against him and make data copies of it, or do whatever it takes. But for now you should lay low. Don't let him suspect anything."

I did not see anything wrong with this, so I agreed. It would give me more time to sort out the business with Elyana.

And then I was suddenly back at the hotel. I went inside quickly and then straight to Elyana's room. Her door was open slightly. I knocked—I always made a point of that after the "incident"—but I didn't hear anything. I stuck my head in, barely, but I saw that she was outside of her room on a little patio that overlooked the gardens outside of the hotel. She was completely still, probably meditating.

I went inside, silently shut the door, and walked out to the patio. Her face was red as the sun beat down on it, and I said, "Yana…"

She seemed to recognize that I was there, but she did not budge. She was sitting in a chair with her eyes closed, her head somewhat down, and her hands clasped over her knees.

I said, "Have you…have you been out here this entire time?"

No response.

"Yana," I tried again, "I have to…I mean." I cleared my throat. "About earlier today. I didn't mean…I mean…I just."

She interrupted me, still with her eyes closed and without looking, and totally knocked me off of my feet. Never could I have anticipated that she would ever say what she was about to say. It floored me.

She said, "I…love you, too."

I did not even know what to do. I was just staring at her with my mouth hanging open.

She looked up at me with mournful eyes, as though life as we knew it had just ended.

It most assuredly had.


	8. Red Wine and Sleeping Pills

_Author's Notes: So, here's another chapter, and in record time! Actually, it's almost a miracle. I experienced a sudden surge of energy and so now you'll probably get an update every week._

_First, though, I MUST thank all the people who've been reviewing: wow! I never expected to get a deluge of reviews like that. Special thanks to __**Gwendolyn Rogan, The Outlander, Gipper 40, **__and __**Master1795 **__(I would respond to your reviews, but you did them anonymously!) Well, thanks again peoples._

_Lastly: this chapter is rather…blustery and has a lot of purple-prose: blame it on Aetius, he's a hyperbolic fellow. :P_

**Red Wine and Sleeping Pills**

Things got rather awkward after that. Not exactly what you would expect, right?

Suddenly we had a secret—something to hide. Kalkannis could not find out. He knew that I had feelings for Elyana, but he had no idea that she reciprocated them. And there was no telling what kind of disaster would have unfolded had he known.

I was not quite sure, either, of Elyana's stance on the Jedi. She admitted this violation of ethics, but I was not sure if she was against the Order and wanted to flee them, or if she simply was lamenting this state of affairs that she found herself in and desperately sought redemption.

Either way, we kept quiet about it. The irony was that I was determined to _avoid _her now, just to prevent suspicions from arising. It was all so backwards. I was around her all the time before the confession, and since then I barely saw her at all.

Weeks passed in this state of hellish limbo, there was nothing we could do. We knew what actions we had to take in order to uncover the terrorist attacks. Ingres was responsible, and he had to be arrested. I told Kalkannis and Elyana about it, but we could not do anything until Theodoric gave us the signal. In the meantime, we were stuck. I grew even more spiteful towards the Order for thrusting me in this position. The injustices, the widow, Cstephon's disaster, Elyana's family, my family, the people on Doliani. All of it was too much. I hated even identifying myself with them. I didn't want to. I wanted to find a way out. I had to convince Elyana to try to leave with me. That was the only way.

I had to find the time soon, as we were going to go after Ingres at any moment.

The political mess was growing more volatile by the day. Riots began to break out with disturbing frequency. There was a great amount of vandalism and parading. The Republic Embassy in the government quarter was bombarded with paint and fruit at one point, and the Republic beefed up security in response. The thing was almost converted into a fortress, and the embassy itself existed only as the last tie between the Republic and Doliani. I know that other outer and mid-rim worlds were going through this. I cannot relate the events with great accuracy, but there were some more injustices committed by the trade federation and more stonewalling going on by the Core Worlds.

Discourse ceased almost completely, the Republic was united only in the most rudimentary sense—name. It would only take a little push to tumble over the edge.

I spent most of my time avoiding Elyana, which pained me, and avoiding Kalkannis, which was incredibly pleasant. He was getting so worked up that it was driving me insane. He was so worried about apprehending Ingres before any more terrorist attacks were committed that he almost seemed to get physically ill as a result. Also, he appeared to really dislike the political friction, and desperately wanted to get back to the safety of the negligent Jedi Order.

This was how we lived for quite some time until finally we got the call from Theodoric. It was time to get Ingres. We arranged for a transport to be ready at the Thoyahna dockyards, high priority, so we could escape the planet with the prisoner in tow before anyone was the wiser. That way we would be off world before any serious rioting could transpire in response. We knew that this would likely be an unpopular thing, as Ingres was their senator and his capture would no doubt inflame the people's rage.

The plan was to go to his office near the Republic Embassy and the Doliani Parliament building and arrest him there. We would then sneak out through any alternative route we could find and make our way to the spaceport (which was only a couple miles away). Then we would leave Doliani for good. We weren't sure what to do about our robes, however. We sent most of our belongings back to the spaceport in bags, ready to ship out, but we kept the robes with us. We jammed them in small packs to carry with us, just in case we decided to use them. The advantages would have been the respect that the robes command. If people know you're a Jedi, they get out of your way and are more inclined to help you. But the downside would have been the inhospitable air of Doliani. Jedi _are _the Republic, and the Republic was despised. We did not want to encourage those hateful emotions if we could avoid it. So we decided to take the robes with us, only to use when we arrested Ingres and then cleared our way out.

We met in the hotel lobby, and for some reason I found speaking to Elyana at that moment unbelievably awkward. Kalkannis was standing right there as I looked at her and asked, "Are you ready?"

"Let's go," she replied, "the sooner we got off this planet the better."

I was a bit perplexed by that comment, and I admit that it disheartened me considerably. I got lost in my thoughts as we trekked through the city, taking a flying trolley-like machine that thoroughly distorted my sense of direction.

As we flew, I pondered the situation of the planet. Once again, representation was the big thing and a panic in the Republic economy resulted in the somewhat foolish decision to hike taxes months earlier. As the economy continued to slip into decline, the taxes remained high and there seemed to be no relief in sight. Coupled with the lack of representation, it seemed as though Doliani was simply being subjected to the whim of Chancellor Tiberius and his cronies, and they were bent out of shape. You could see signs of strain everywhere you went.

We walked through crowded streets, with great tan stones layering the roads through a massive marketplace, and I did not say a word as we walked. I was so confused about what to do; I just resigned to going through with the arrest and then just going home. As we kept going, I became angry at my situation, angry at Kalkannis for obstructing everything, and even angry at Elyana for making this happen to me at all. I had endured this for a while before that day. Without Elyana to talk to, I barraged myself with stupid questions, and I eventually grew worried that Elyana didn't mean anything she said, and that we would likely just have to go back to the Order as though we had never met. It upset me greatly, and I began to feel a degree of animosity towards her because of her distance. I would have drowned myself in self-pity had not Elyana broken the relative silence with a very pertinent question.

"Where is Kalkannis?" she asked.

I suddenly stopped, glancing first at her and then at the multitudes of people wandering through the streets, bumping into each other and sprawling all over the boardwalk. I put my hand on the back of my head and said, "I don't know."

We walked around a fountain several times, trying to pick out the distinct man from the crowds, but we had no luck. It was about three in the afternoon and the sun was high and hot. We got tired of looking for him and decided to just head straight for the government quarter and try to find him there.

The trouble was…we appeared to be lost.

"Do you know how to get there?" I asked.

"No…" she admitted.

"I don't either," I said.

"Haven't you been there before?"

"Yes, but I don't remember the directions, and I didn't go this way—I followed Theodoric."

"I guess we'll have to ask for directions then."

Another banal conversation. We hadn't actually had a real conversation since the day we confessed our love to each other. It was as though the whole thing was just a bad joke—it was stupid enough to make you laugh if it didn't hurt so much. I had poured my heart out for this woman, and now we standing lost on Market Street with absolutely nothing to say to each other. And there was this monstrous issue that neither of us seemed willing to address. I've heard the phrase "rancor in the room", but this was ridiculous.

We tried to get directions and eventually made our way back towards the government quarter. I found an annoying tourist droid and asked it where to go. The thing spouted off about the sights to see for nearly ten minutes before I finally forced the directions out of it. By the time we were put on the right path the day had waned. By the time we had made it reasonably close, it had grown completely dark.

In this time, something happened. To this day, I'm not sure what it was, but I want to say that a Republic guard in front of the embassy killed some idiot kid who was throwing rocks at his head. But whatever it was, it resulted in a cataclysmic uproar. The planet was essentially in chaos. As we drew closer, we saw that fires had broken out due to the riotous response of the Doliani population, with ash and smoke rising up into the night air and coloring the buildings orange and red.

We tried to navigate the mess regardless, but it was clear that even being outside was dangerous.

We heard explosions and gunfire over the din, randomly interrupting the steady background noise of the riots. Mostly the buildings targeted were owned by people from off planet or noted Republic loyalists. Some of them were dragged from their houses and through the street. The looters, however, were not very concerned with who they attacked.

This was the case with a family that we came across.

Elyana and I found a cluster of people standing in the middle of the road with a bunch of broken debris next to them. It was dark, and we were unable to discern who was there. I saw a man on the ground, his hand on his head, and then a shrieking woman being held back by two other men. She was twisting and screeching like mad as we drew closer. We then saw that another man was holding a gun to a young boy. Behind them a group of people were loading a bunch of furniture and belongings onto the back of a large speeder.

We came closer and heard the voices.

"No! Please stop!" shouted the woman. "Henrik, do something!"

The man she appeared to be shouting at was the older fellow on the ground. We saw now that he was bleeding profusely and muttering something incoherently. They didn't bother restraining him as he was not all there anymore.

The thug with the gun laughed devilishly but didn't say anything else. They were looters, taking advantage of the anarchic situations.

"Put the gun down," said Elyana forcefully. We were now close enough to be in hearing range. The thugs glanced aside at us and one asked, "Who the hell are you?"

"We're Jedi," said Elyana. I remained silent.

They all began snickering. The man with the gun threw the kid to the ground and pointed it at us. He said, "Look, undercover Jedi—in street clothes."

"Put the gun away," Elyana repeated.

"My, aren't you a pretty one?" said another, "and a bleeding heart do-gooder to boot. You going to restore order, girl? The riots are out of control—we're just…taking advantage of the situation."

"Kill the guy," suggested one of them, meaning kill me, "and take the girl—she'd be much more fun alive."

I didn't bother responding, there was no time anyway. A shot was fired and a blaster bolt flew my direction, but it missed. I simultaneously launched a wall of the Force at them, blasting three of the thugs off of the ground and narrowly avoiding throwing the boy they were holding hostage as well. Two others fired at me, and I pulled out my lightsaber and blocked both of their shots. Elyana threw one backwards and then summoned the blaster out of the other's hands. She spun around and aimed at another attacker. He was mirroring the action, but she was quicker and put a bolt in his knee. He screamed and fell, and I pulled the pistol out of his hand and into my own. I turned back to the other thugs, who were running away. I fired a shot over their heads, and though I wanted to kill them, something internal prevented me from doing it.

Elyana was already at the side of the family that had been tormented. She healed the man's cut and made sure the kid was okay too.

I realized that the man she had shot in the knee had limped off, and with no other thugs in the area I joined her.

"They should be okay," she said to the woman.

"Who were those men?" I asked.

The woman was crying, both from fear and happiness, and said, "I don't know…they were from the government quarter—…" she then broke off and said, "Thank you so much master Jedi, thank you…I…"

"Don't worry," said Elyana, "just try to get somewhere safe."

"Yes, master Jedi, thank you…"

We left them alone. I was a bit confused about the whole situation. Those thugs certainly did not endear me to the Doliani plight, but they were an expectable result of the Republic's actions. They had tried to tighten their grip on the planet and then the situation blew up in their faces as a result. I was still unsure about what my role was. I was a Republic servant, and I had just chased off Doliani rioters…but politically my allegiance was shifting towards Doliani. They were being abused and I sympathized with them. It was a confusing time.

"I didn't know you had a green lightsaber," said Elyana.

"Yeah, I always liked that color."

"Me too."

"Yours is green?"

She nodded.

We wandered about one hundred yards and then Elyana said, "The rioting is out of control that way, you can hear it. We should find another way."

"I don't know another way," I said, "and besides, we can't have much time."

And then we remembered Kalkannis.

That man's ability to somehow get lost during a routine walk suddenly infuriated me. Once again his stupidity was costing us.

"Where do you think he is?" I asked.

Elyana was cooler than I, so she approached the situation logically. She said, "Wherever he is, he's not going to be able to arrest Ingres with the city like this. We don't have to worry about that, we'll just have to find him. Do you know anyone who can help?"

"Theodoric," I said instantly, "we have to contact him."

I contacted him on my comm, though it took some time to do it. I explained our situation, and he told us to just quit for the day.

"It's too dangerous near the parliament building," he said, "the rioting is worst there and the Republic Embassy, it's better if you can duck down somewhere safe and stay there until it passes. You can come for Ingres later."

"Can we get back to the hotel from here?" asked Elyana.

"That's too far," said Theodoric, "and you'll have to cross the Royal Mile to get there, which seems pretty lawless as of now, it's better if you stay near here."

"But where can we go?"

"I know," he said, "there's a secluded retreat near where you are. It's a summer home for rent that our senators usually use while the Senate is inactive—you can go there. No one's using it now, and I can give you the password."

I was surprised, that sounded too good to be true. Elyana and I thanked the man three times over and he bade us goodbye. We immediately began following the directions he mapped out until we arrived at the place, well after dusk.

We could not really see it in the night, but I could tell that the house was quite beautiful. It was a big house, one could probably consider it a mansion, and it sat atop a green knoll that overlooked a serene lake. The moonlight reflected off it nicely, otherwise I probably wouldn't have noticed it. Although there was the smell…

It was reasonably isolated from the city, so we were far away from the rioting. Elyana expressed a bit of hesitation to leaving the scenes of carnage, since we were obligated, as Jedi, to help. But realistically there wasn't anything we could do but just wait it out. There was no way we could stop the rioting, and any personal intervention would likely have resulted only in death and nothing more. As such, we agreed to wait out the anarchy at this safe house.

I opened the gate with the code and we were able to bypass the automated security system and go up to the door. There was a bit of a winding, stone path that led up to the front door. I gawked at the house as we approached it. The whole thing was ridiculously romantic, a fact that I found rather…convenient. I could tell Elyana was enthralled by the place too. I was just glad to finally be close to her again, especially without Kalkannis anywhere around.

I opened the door, walked in, and then stepped aside to let in Elyana. The house was dark, and the air inside seemed to somehow be thick and murky, but it wasn't a bad thing. It was somehow…close, and comforting.

I set down my small bag and didn't really look around, but she saw something I didn't.

She almost gasped and said, "Lenny…there's a _piano_."

I turned around and she was already next to it. It was an old wooden contraption, seemingly ancient. It was an upright, and rather deep as well. The cantankerous instrument creaked as she pushed the lid up and beheld the ivory keyboard. She stood still and gently tapped some of the keys, trying to calmly coax a noise out of the machine. It sounded forced when she did it, like the notes only came out grudgingly. There was something halted in them, and it felt artificial. The sound was awful.

She said, "Hmm, it's not in the best shape. No one's taken care of this or exercised it in a long time." She struck one of the keys, eliciting a dusty twang, and said, "this D flat is out of tune. And this low A flat is dead."

"Can you tune it?" I asked.

"No, you'd need a professional to do that. I don't know how."

She then took her hand off and looked almost longingly at the old instrument.

"Play something," I suggested to her.

She looked back at me and almost began to protest, as though she didn't want to show anyone what she could do. She'd likely learned to repress her desire to play for people since the Jedi discouraged music (for reasons that I don't understand). She smirked and said, "Well, I guess I'll have to play something without D or A flat."

She pulled out the bench and sat down on it. It creaked, and I almost thought it would break, as a splinter flew out from one of the legs. She paid it no heed and said, "How about in G major? Or maybe in the relative minor…?"

"Huh…?"I grunted, "what does that mean?"

"Each key has a relative minor," she answered and then began the lecture, "each key has modes—one is the relative minor. It means that it is the minor key that has the same notes in the scale as its relative major."

I, of course, don't really know anything about music (aside from what she had told me), but this conversation has been impressed into my memory. I remember asking, "What the hell? Why? If it's the same, why are there two names?"

"It's not the same—they start on different keys. They just have the same notes in the scale."

"Whatever," I said, "that doesn't make sense."

"Of course it doesn't make sense to _you_."

"Ouch," I said, "putting my hand on my chest as though she had shot me. You're such a good teacher."

She rolled her eyes.

She turned away and scooted the rickety wooden bench closer to the contraption and then began to hammer out a few notes. She was apparently playing the scale, and it did not sound that good to me. I was pretty apprehensive about listening to her play, as I was sure I was going to have to lie and heap undeserved accolades onto her after she played, pretending to have enjoyed it. After all, she was a Jedi, how could she know how to play? So she knew what a relative minor was—that didn't mean anything, right?

The scale sounded ugly. It was as though the instrument was fighting her. She grappled with it, trying to subjugate it and force it to comply with her wishes. It was an interesting battle, but eventually she won.

My doubts were slowly erased. She started playing softly, a couple chords on the right hand and some low octaves on the left. They were drawn out through the pedal and very slow, resonating through the air for quite a long time. Each chord was slow and deliberate, and she let them hang. Sometimes she would pound the lower notes hard and overpower the higher notes. Slowly she gave way to the melody, which would build gradually to an emotional crescendo and then fall again, back to the beginning of the melody.

I was amazed as she played; amazed that she was able to generate this achingly beautiful song from such a decrepit old instrument. I do not know if you have ever really _heard _music—like real music, not just some noise, but that is how I felt when I listened to her. It was as if the notes were personal things, they were alive, floating through the air and overwhelming me.

She then played this bizarrely hopeful interlude, which seemed to clash with the rest of the piece, lifting up the song and then letting it fall back down again.

When she went into the second part…I was completely shocked at her ability. She was…incredible.

She somehow maintained the same overall melody, but her left hand, her little left hand, managed to fly up and down the keys with the sort of precise rapidity that I just did not think was possible. The notes in the background were so fast and numerous that they reminded me of a little waterfall—a brook spilling over a rock. Her hand danced over the keys, sometimes even hopping over her relatively still right hand and playing notes above it. It was phenomenal.

I was totally awestruck. Watching this performance floored me. Once again I was blown away by her abilities. Watching her inflamed a sort of base desire within me, something that I had not previously had to deal with. She was the literal embodiment of perfection; it was incredible to just watch her. Slowly I stopped watching her hands and just looked at her beautiful face. She was so focused while playing, furrowing her brow and breathing deeply as she manipulated the keys.

She eventually brought the song down, lightly skipping her fingers over the keys in a strangely soothing outro that sprinkled notes all around the room.

She hit the last note and then held it for a moment before slowly lifting her hands up.

She then put them down on her lap and then turned to me. Her eyes beckoned a review, as though she were asking, "So?"

I wanted to say that it was incredible, that it was the best music I'd ever heard, but instead I only managed to say what was on my mind. "You are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen," I said from out of nowhere.

To her credit, she rolled with it and actually responded with her characteristic sarcasm. "Yeah, well, you've seen a whole lot of me," she said coyly.

That was enough; I couldn't take it anymore. I walked over to her and put my hand on her shoulder. I muttered something…I don't recall what it was. I just mumbled it. She looked up at me as I touched her and then smiled. That same infectious smile I had begun to crave.

What happened after is mostly a blur. We were holding each other…somehow we got upstairs.

I won't go on and describe in detail what happened after. It was like something holy, something that words could not do justice—it would be a crime to try to put it into letters.

It is not a clear memory, not something that can easily just be recollected and spoken about. It was something more. It was huge; it was everything. It was the exact moment that I stopped being a Jedi…that she stopped being a Jedi. We finally severed ourselves from the Order.

A dramatically ironic reversal took place. When I stumbled across her in her room that one day when she was showering, it was humiliating. I felt terrible, and she was embarrassed. It was just bad. But now here she was again, now standing in front of me without any clothes and it was completely different. She was not embarrassed, and I was not embarrassed. It was normal.

We had become fully human.

It's something that I've thought about since. We always put up fronts; we always try to project these images of ourselves that society finds acceptable. We always have to fake things in order to maintain these images. But when I was with Elyana that night we didn't have to worry about that. We were completely at ease with each other, and there was no shame. That is how you can be fully human, you can be completely revealed—you can hide nothing—and you have someone with you who loves you anyway. That is what it means to be fully human. To be naked and not be ashamed.

It really sounds silly when you think about it, but that was rather the point. Nothing would have deadened these feelings as much as seriousness would have. We were Jedi, we didn't know what to do. We had to figure it out, and it would have been comical to anyone who didn't know any better. So we just worked together, and that made it even more intimate. Stoic seriousness might have derailed the whole thing.

"I think you're crazy," I told her affectionately.

"Maybe," was her characteristic reply.

We finally had abandoned the masochistic Jedi principles of self-hate and degradation, having embraced our true humanity. This somehow emphasized our common humanity and soft-pedaled our individuality. We became more than just ourselves; we shed the fronts and the projected images and became universal. As lovers we ceased to be merely Aetius and Elyana, we became the universal He and She. We became greater than anything we had previously known.

I could almost say that we _put _on nakedness as a ceremonial robe. Far more powerful than the robes of the Jedi, we had finally found our calling. We were made for each other. I existed for her.

I loved her so much, I felt some sort of insatiable desire to _become _her. I fancied being an angelic creature made of light, able to achieve complete interpenetration with her instead of our mere fragile embraces. Love her…? I _was _her.

But it wasn't about me. I thought nothing of myself, only of her. She was my reason for life.

As she fell asleep, I laid there, bathing in this glorious love and trying to sort out my thoughts. It was then that I made my decision. I finally realized that I wanted to leave the Jedi Order. I wanted to stay with Elyana, leave them behind forever. I wanted to marry her, to have children with her, to live with her in a house like this and enjoy our lives peacefully, and to stay away from galactic affairs. The plight of Doliani tugged at my heartstrings as I thought about it, but nothing commanded my heart's devotion like she did. I would give everything up for her: Doliani, the Republic, the Jedi, everything. I wanted nothing more.

I fell asleep with my hand on her breast. I could feel her heart beat. Steady and strong, like a metronome she could play piano to, I could feel it. Sometimes I can still feel it when I fall asleep.

I was never more content than I was that night, and I never would be again. The next day…that idiot…that unspeakably imbecilic bastard Kalkannis destroyed my life.


	9. The Horror

**The Horror**

I woke up later than she did the next day. I looked around curiously for a moment until I saw through the open double doors that gave way to a white, wooden balcony. I got up and went outside to see her there.

It was strange, now I felt changed around. And instead of falling down, I was standing up on this…morning after. I mean…I was totally in control of myself for once. I didn't do anything stupid, say anything stupid, or totally screw up anything like I was given to doing whenever I was around Elyana. It was like I was finally free of worrying.

She was sitting in a chair, with her Jedi robe on somewhat haphazardly, and overlooking the outside of the manor. We hadn't seen it the night before, but there was the lake in full view. The balcony presented us with a magnificent view of it. It was earlier in the morning, and fog still lingered on the ground. The air was dense, and sounds from the wooded area carried and flushed the air around us.

"Hi, Yana," I said to her simply.

"Hi," she smiled.

We were quiet for a while, watching the nothingness outside. I was hungry, but that did not really concern me at the moment. We were, eventually, going to have to figure out what to do. Elyana, ever the step ahead of me, asked pointedly, "Where do we go from here?"

I was silent. Of course I knew where I wanted to go from there, but I was not sure she would go along with it.

"I don't know," I said, "we can't stay here for long. Soon we'll have to go find Kalkannis."

This was obvious. She then asked again, "Where do _we _go from here?"

I looked back at her, then replied, "Where do you think we should go?"

"I don't know," she answered.

I gulped and then decided to drop the bomb. I said, "Yana, I don't think we can go back to the Jedi."

She was understandably disturbed by this. Perhaps she shared my dislike for the Order, but it wasn't just that simple. We could treat this intimate experience as a momentary sin in which we fell away from the Order, and try to right it, or we could abandon them altogether. I favored the latter, but it was not a decision to be made lightly.

"I don't know if we can just leave," she said.

I hoped we could, so desperately. But I had to be calm, tactful. I said, "If we go back…we'll never see each other again."

She didn't reply. I then decided to make my pitch. I gestured out to the lake and said, "Look, Yana, this is exactly what you always dreamed of. A place, far away, where you could escape and just be away. There's even a piano here for you. Isn't this what you always wanted?"

She said very slowly, "It…is…"

I didn't let her finish. I said, "We could stay on Doliani. Or go somewhere else. But we could find a place like this and stay away. What has the Republic ever done for us? Or the Jedi? Our families suffered because of them!"

"And what would we do?" she asked pointedly.

"I don't know. We could…we could find a place like this to live in. We could…we could get married."

"Lenny…" she sighed, her eyes betrayed sadness, "we can't get married…"

I stuttered nervously, "Why…why not?"

"We're Jedi," she said, "we…can't."

"Let's leave then," I stated more forcefully, "forget about the Order. We don't need them. We can stop being Jedi."

"It isn't that easy," she said, "we can't stop being Jedi, any more than I can stop having blue eyes. It is just who we are."

"But there has to be a way, we have to think of a way to do this."

"I'm trying," she said.

It was a horrible conundrum. Leaving everything that you know about life, even for the sake of love, is possibly the hardest decision to make. The only thing harder would be leaving your family for the sake of a lover. But we, as Jedi, have no family. And leaving the Order was as close as we would ever come to that dilemma. It was hard. I knew that she was sincere in her confusion. A part of her wanted to leave the Order, but I wasn't sure if it was as strong as the part of me that wanted to leave.

I tried to emphasize my point again, "If we went back we'd never see each other again."

The alternative would be to live as outcast exiles. Ostracized from the only thing we ever knew. It was intimidating.

"I…I have to think about it," she said.

"Yes, love, there's no rush."

She smiled thankfully. I think she liked it when I called her that.

Eventually the conversation shifted to what we'd have to do that day. We heard reports that the riots had died down considerably. There was no more looting or burning, but there were still sizable crowds in the streets. We decided to leave, shortly, to find Kalkannis and arrest Ingres. Still we had to prolong our objective. That was still our mission, and until we arrived at a decision about our future, we would carry on as though things were normal. It was best to delay it as long as possible.

We ate quickly and then left the manor, hoping to make our way through the disheveled city towards the government quarter. With luck, we would contact Theodoric again and organize Ingres's arrest. We figured the best thing to do would be to not wear the Jedi robes, that way no one would pay any attention to us as we made our way through the streets.

We walked most of the way, and I made a point of holding onto Elyana's hand as we went. Even those who noticed us didn't pay such a gesture any heed, they were likely trying to just get out of our way—or perhaps they simply did not know it was anything out of the ordinary. Seeing two Jedi walking through the streets, hands clasped. Indeed it was out of the ordinary, but times were strange.

We made it all the way to the government quarter and, as fate would have it, we found Kalkannis roaming around aimlessly there. He was noticeably flustered. I immediately let go of Elyana's hand as he saw us, and he came raging through the crowd, his eyes wild and face red. He seemed to have finally figured it out. He was not pleased. And on top of that, he had reverted back to his frustrating need to display his Jedi colors for all to see. He was wearing his Jedi robes, and he stuck out like a sore thumb.

"Where did you two go yesterday?!" he cried.

"Us? Where did _you _go?!" I asked. "We looked for you for hours!"

"I was trying to complete our mission—_I _have a duty to the Jedi Order that I am not going to abandon. While I was trying to get to the government quarter, I guess you two were off pleasuring yourselves!"

Elyana was not happy about that last comment, and she snapped at him, "If you weren't stupid enough to get lost then we would have made it to the quarter fine!"

I just asked him idiotically, "How did you know where we were?"

Elyana closed her eyes and looked down, sighing deeply.

Kalkannis threatened us with ethical retribution, said, "You both have a lot to answer for. I should have known this would have happened. I should have…" he kept muttering to himself like that.

I balled my fists and was about to yell at him when Elyana interrupted and said, "This isn't doing anything good. Let's try to get to Ingres. We need to talk to Theodoric."

"I already spoke to him," said Kalkannis, "that's where I learned where you two were last night," he said to me pointedly.

We were both silent, there was no way we could dissuade the fool.

"I'm going to arrest him right now. I was already on my way there. If you two still have any loyalty to the Jedi you'll do the same."

Still silence. I just didn't know what to say, and I don't think Elyana did either.

Kalkannis then challenged me—as he seemed to be feeling particularly intelligent that day—and said, "Aren't you going to say something? Defend yourself?"

"Yeah," I said, "fuck you."

His eyes widened like I had just killed someone. He recoiled in horror. Elyana berated me and said, "Lenny…don't say that. This isn't…"

Kalkannis interrupted her and pointed. He said, "No, the problem is that you're doing that to _her_."

I have to admit, that was probably the wittiest thing that man had ever said in his entire life. It took him about fifty years, but he finally managed to cull together all of the sarcasm and wit he had ever witnessed and manifest it in that comeback. I was impressed. But then I realized that his comment was likely another accident born out of ignorance. Such was his lot in life.

Elyana was embarrassed, but she managed to suppress it and said, "Look, we can solve this later. For now, let's just get going, okay? Please?"

She stalked away and left the two of us staring at each other. Kalkannis's mouth was ajar, and I just stared at him with malice. I could feel the hatred by then. My love for Elyana was only equaled by my hate for him—I was a bi-polar creature, dominated by these two feelings. But I would not blaspheme my love for Elyana by saying that this other emotion was greater. It was not greater; nothing was greater.

Kalkannis resolved to let it go, at least for the moment, and we followed him quickly through the city towards the parliament.

Allow me now to detail a bit about the political situation at that time. The Republic had tried to crackdown on Doliani by reinforcing the embassy with more guards, and they halted traffic on and off of the planet. It was likely that only us Jedi would have been allowed to leave had we obtained a shuttle. The Republic regional militia had been put on alert and was standing by to respond should any more hostilities break out. They had all reached the breaking point—soon something would happen. And happen it did.

It's going to be hard to retell, but I am going to try for the sake of the story. Since I started this book, this was the part that I dreaded the most. Since I am now of a sound mind, I ask you to forgive me if my writing seems to indicate…instability. I am going to do my best.

We made it to the building where most of the planet's representatives had their offices. The three senators had their offices in the same area, though they were considerably nicer.

There was a crowd in the main square between the Parliament and Judicial buildings and the Republic Embassy, with the Imperial Palace overlooking the whole thing. The square was very large and could accommodate quite a large number of people. In the middle was a raised platform where political rallies were often staged. The crowd seemed determined to harass the Republic Embassy as much as it could. We tried to sneak around it and get into the main parliament offices.

Theodoric met us there. He had a very conflicted look on his face, and I wasn't sure what that meant. He said to us as we walked up the stone steps to the great marble building, "All right, Ingres is in his office. Shall we go?" He seemed rather nervous. I assumed that he was just on edge because he was now part of the force arresting his mentor. It was an unusual situation. "One of you should stay back here to monitor the crowd," he continued, "when we have Ingres you can contact us and tell us if it's safe to go out—also, I'm not sure when he will be done. He might go around and try to come out front—a habit of his after lunch—so we should leave someone here just in case."

Elyana volunteered, said, "I'll wait. I have…some thinking to do."

We thought that was okay and we went in. I knew what she was going to think about. I silently prayed that she would arrive at a decision soon. I wanted to know what she wanted to do.

Theodoric escorted us through the building—it was not very crowded then—and towards Ingres's office. We got to the door and Theodoric stopped. He said, "All right, you go in. Make it quick, and don't make a mess."

I was confused by that last remark, but we went in all the same. We walked through to the back of the large office and saw the fat man sitting behind his desk. He exclaimed as we walked in, "Why, it's the reporter from the other day! What can I do for you, lad?"

Kalkannis immediately blurted out, "On the authority of the Jedi Order, you are arrested on suspicion for the bombing of the Temple."

"The what?!" he cried out. "Jedi?! You…" he then looked at me, "You're a Jedi too?! What is with these lies? Someone better explain this to me!"

I said calmly, "We have reason to believe that you are involved in the widespread terrorist attacks that have been taking place in the last year. I know you think of me as a friend…and I am. Please cooperate with us so this isn't difficult, you'll be fine."

"But…I haven't done anything! And if people think I'm a terrorist…you'll kill me!"

"No, as long as you are under the protection of the Jedi you will come to no harm. We do not kill our prisoners."

He looked at us suspiciously and didn't get up.

"Now," I said, "stand up and put your hands in the air. Don't try anything."

I took a step closer to him and suddenly his face went pale white. His mouth dropped and his tiny eyes widened enough to see his entire iris. He gasped, "What…what are you doing?!"

Somehow both Kalkannis and I were too preoccupied to realize what Theodoric was doing. We didn't sense him or anything. I still don't know how I didn't…but I didn't.

There was a gunshot.

A bolt ripped into Ingres forehead, freezing his face with that stupefied expression on it. It was the horror of betrayal. His face fell forwards onto his desk.

I spun around and beheld Theodoric standing there, a blaster pistol in his hand.

"What _are _you doing?!" I yelled.

"Starting this revolution," he said calmly.

"You killed him! We don't kill our prisoners!" said Kalkannis.

Theodoric sheathed his blaster, said, "Precisely, but do think that crowd out there knows that? This'll be enough to push them over the edge."

"What the hell?!" I said, "why are you doing this? He was your friend, wasn't he? What does this have to do with us?!"

"An ambitious politician has no friends," answered Theodoric, "only obstacles. I am grateful for his guidance, but he stood in Doliani's way for too long."

"Stood in the way?" Kalkannis asked.

"Inges was the last senator to oppose secession from the Republic. We needed him on board to do it, but he would not oblige. With him out of the way, we will have this revolution, one way or another."

"You mean…he wasn't involved in the terrorist attacks? You lied?" Kalkannis asked.

"Hell no," said Theodoric, "he was just an old, fat idiot who was holding everyone back. Now that he's gone the universe is a better place. Doliani will be free."

"You're under arrest then!" exclaimed Kalkannis.

"You know better than that," smirked Theodoric as he turned to me. "Aetius, my friend, I'm giving you an exit. Get the hell out of here now while you still can. This place is going to turn upside-down. They'll think that both of _you _killed him! It will be the Jedi's fault. There'll be a riot once word of this gets out. You run now and you can get out of here. And oh my—your dear Elyana is still out front! You don't want her out there once the people get out of control."

He played his cards expertly. We could have stayed and arrested or killed him easily, but he knew I would go ensure Elyana's safety before anything else. He knew _everything_.

I looked to Kalkannis quickly and said, "We have to find her!"

I don't know if he agreed with me, but I took off the way we came.

I sprinted faster than I thought I could and burst through the doors. Elyana was standing there still, completely unaware of what had just happened.

"Lenny," she said, "What are you doing here? What happened?"

"Quick!" I said, "we have to get out of here!"

"Why? What's happened?"

"No time, let's go!"

I grabbed her hand as Kalkannis shot out the door behind me. "Wait!" he called, and began following us frantically.

I launched straight into the crowd with Elyana in tow. I figured we could just try to run to the spaceport and get out here. Or at least find somewhere safe to hide. I realized then that Theodoric had been behind the revolution the whole time. It was his plan—along with Arnom and Delacroix. They had hatched their scheme, and the powder keg of a planet was about to burst. They had organized the bombing of the Temple. They were suddenly terrifying and powerful. Enigmatic and manipulative.

I forced my way through the people and even knocked several down as we went. Elyana tried to stop me. She was emphatic, said, "Lenny! Listen! I have something to tell you!"

I wheeled around quickly and said, "What? Come on…we have to go!"

She began quickly, "Okay, but I've decided what we should do. I think—"

Suddenly her voice was overcome by a roaring from the throngs of people. There was a man standing up on the steps to the office building. He was waving his arms around and the people began screaming like mad. We couldn't hear anything until suddenly his voice boomed over the din: "Senator Ingres is dead! The Jedi have killed him!"

Elyana looked at me wide-eyed. Now she knew why we had to get out of there. "We didn't kill him!" I tried to tell her over the noise, "Theodoric did!" She stood still for a moment and then turned to flee as well. We both knew we had to get out of there. The shouting was growing more incessant.

"Where are they?!" cried someone.

"I don't see them!"

At length, Kalkannis was spotted. "There's one!"

I turned to run. Just as I spun around there was a flash of light in the distance. It was a simple thing, just a blink. It was so far away, so remote. And yet it was so…horrible. I heard the distinct noise of a rifle being fired. A red bolt sang through the sky towards the area right behind me. I instinctively ducked my head and covered it with my hand. I heard the unmistakable noise of a lightsaber being ignited. A blade swept through the sky and deflected the bolt. It ricocheted. There was a moment of silence after the impact and then…I heard the scream…

It was ear shattering, the sound you only hear from someone in mortal pain. It was a woman's scream—and it hurt just to hear it.

Everything happened in a blur. The people around us ducked as they heard the blaster fire. They were gone, and I spun. My stomach leapt into my throat as I saw Elyana falling to the ground. She hadnot even hit is when I saw her. Slowly she fell through the air, her face contorted and bled of color. She thudded onto the ground, her arm bent at a weird angle. Then I saw the charred black crater on her side. She had been…shot.

I was scared. I was absolutely terrified. I ran over to her immediately and put my arm around her.

"Yana…Yana," I said slwoily. There was nothing else to say. She was in shock from the pain. I tried to use the Force to heal her…but there is only so much that it can do. We can heal things…but we cannot…stop death.

I tried to help her up, said, "Yana…please…please be okay."

She did not say anything, but she looked at me. I beheld her beautiful cyan eyes for the last time, trying to hold onto her as though I were holding onto her life. Trying to keep her from fading. She couldn't speak…she couldn't even breathe. I began crying. I know that for sure…I was trying to say thigns..but I couldn't help…I was just holding her…"I love you, Yana…" I said…I said…

She gasped and tried to say something, but the words would not come. She coughed and I just looked at her eyes. i saw the transformation as it happened. They went from frazzled blue orbs, still clinging to life…and slowly they stopped moving around…slowly her breath began to slow…slowly her heartbeat began to still…I felt it…in…my…hand…and then her eyes stopped moving completely. They went still…as she went still…and I felt her last breath leave her body.

I cried. I put my arms around her and touched her forehead with my own, trying to hold on to her…trying to wake up from the horrible dream…

I don't know how long I held onto her in that horrible place. It felt like hours…I just cradled her lifeless body in my arms. I whispered to her how much I loved her. my tears flowed from my face onto hers. I just could not move. I was paralyzed by this agony. It was a hell that could not be described…

then kalkannis was next to me. i could hear his footsteps draw close…slowly as time began to thaw and i came back to what was happening. i sat in the street unmoving as he approached… I didnt say anything to him until he stopped. he was next to me and I just sat there. He said something but i don't know what it was. i muttered, "you bastard son of a bitch…you killed her…"

"I didnt kill her!" he said defensively.

"it was your shot you reflected it!" I responded.!

"It was…an accident," he said…

"you…" I said slowly as I looked up letting elyana's lifeless head fall onto my lap… "you said there are no accidents…"

"I…" he muttered…

"There is only…the force," I said.

I then screamed. A rage unlike anything I had ever experienced overcame me and I suddenly lunged at him like like a feral beast. I let my fist fly before he even knew what was happening and it collided with his jaw, breaking it and sending blood flying from his mouth.

"you killed her!" I cried.

He groaned in pain and I relished it. my hate for this man then manifested itself fully. Anger exploded outwards and I attacked him. I wanted to hurt him…I wanted to give him pain…I was a candle…my head was full of flames. I wanted to make him bleed. I wanted him to endure the unspeakable horror that i was enduring. He deserved to die…I only wished I could make his death as miserable as my life…

I drew my lightsaber and tried to stab him with it. he dodged it and then drew his own. I began to batter it like a madman, not trying to do anything tactical…I just beat his blue sword with my green one as though it were a dummy target. I hammered away, swinging back and forth wildly.

He retreated backwards, trying desperately to stave off my violent attacks. I could see the fear in his eyes as I stalked towards him, screaming obscenities and threats at him. he retreated up onto the stage. The crowd backpedaled as the witnessed the spectacle I gave them.

Kalkannis tried to plead for his life as I fought him towards the edge. He said through slurred words, hindered by his broken jaw, "please…Ae…tius…it was just an accident…don't…don't…"

"But I will!" I cried.

I managed to hit his lightsaber up high away from his body and then I followed that by running him through with my own. He gasped in pain as I wrenched it into his chest. "there," I said, "is that your heart…? How…fitting…"

He gasped again and then moaned horribly, his body twisting and falling to the ground.

"Don't die you bastard!" I said, "I'm not done with you yet!"

I kicked his body and it was clear he was dead. I swung my lightsaber down in a fury, I could feel the veins sticking out of my neck. His head was severed from his body, rolling several feet away. I kicked it hard and it flew away and I fell to the ground, letting my lightsaber fall with me.

I was hyperventilating, clenching my fists and jaw as I tried to breathe. I stared at nothingness, just sat there. I saw the horrified looks on the faces of the people who saw me.

Suddenly theodoric's voice rang out from the top of the stairs above me. he said, "The Jedi who killed Ingres is dead! He is with us!" he pointed at me. "The Republic plot has failed! They will not stop us!"

The crowd roared.

"The Revolution has begun! Doliani will be free!"

There was a stampede. As I sat there, on my knees, I felt the bodies fly around me in a wild surge. They stormed towards the republic embassy which was just nearby. Blaster fire rang out as they stormed inside. There were casualties…and they took it…but none greater than what had befallen me.

Theodoric came up to me then, as I sat there motionless.

"Aetius," he said as gently as possible.

I just gritted my teeth.

"I'm sorry Aetius," he said.

"Yana…" I just whispered.

I turned around to go back to her body. Theodoric followed me. I was too preoccupied to hate him…too preoccupied to think of what he had done.

I went back and sat down next to my yana, cradling her head again. I closed my eyes and tried to will myself somewhere else. I had fallen forward, my face on the ground. So overcome with agony that as I sobbed my face scraped across the concrete, shredding my skin, but I didnt care.

"I know," said Theodoric, "how much this hurts…"

"No…no you don't…" I whispered through choked sobs.

"I know you hate the Jedi" he said.

And I knew he was right. Kalkannis…the Jedi… "I hate what…they do…they ruin everything. I hate them…for ruining my life…I _hate them_."

"And they shouldn't get away with that," he said. "Come on, Aetius."

I can't write anymore. I have to stop now…I'll keep going later.

---

_Author's Notes: Well, that was insanely depressing. So ends the happy portion of Aetius's life. Now we have to move into the revolution itself and the things which follow._


	10. Interlude

_Author's Notes: Phew, I'm a bit late with this. Sorry about that. Anyway, here's a short in-between chapter for the two parts of this story. Hope you enjoy, and thanks, once again, to my awesome reviewers._

**Interlude**

No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear.

Not in that you feel afraid, but that the general sensation is the same. The brooding feeling that you're on edge…that at any moment it could all go to pieces…is ever-present. It's like being concussed, there's a blanket of fog over you. There is an invisible buffer between the world and me. I have been severed from reality through trauma. You can't shake this feeling. You try to do something to get it to away, but you can't. It stays despite your best efforts. And then at the same time you don't want it to go away because you almost _want _people to pity you. You want them to be about you.

The agony of losing this woman that I loved so much is excruciating…but what is even worse is the sticky sweet pleasure of indulging in the pain. Of wanting everyone to feel bad for you. Of commanding their sympathy. Of forcing them to consider you above everyone else—abusing the tragedy. _That _is truly horrific. It makes your head swim.

I was in such a bad state after Elyana died that I spent the first part of the revolution completely isolated from the events of the outside world.

As I had sat there in the road, hunched over my beloved's body, the massive crowd had stormed into the Republic Embassy. The Republic guards resisted and opened fire. There were casualties, but they swarmed in like insects, completely overrunning the building. They then began to destroy it. The impetus for this sudden display was Ingres's death, which Theodoric had masterfully manipulated to look like another Republic injustice. He framed Kalkannis perfectly. He chose when the revolution would begin. Much like everything else he did—it had to be at the proper time. He was a genius that way.

Now, the information about this event ranges from the inexact to the outright untruthful. There were rumors that _I _had killed Ingres (generated by the Republic), and murmurs of discontent. Most of them here on Coruscant seem to think that I did it. But I didn't, Theodoric did. And Kalkannis stupidly walked into the trap with his robes on, causing that whole horrific tragedy to take place. If he _hadn't _been wearing those robes, Elyana would still be alive. We would have been able to escape (which was Theodoric's plan for us, he assured me). But Kalkannis _did _it. And so he suffered my wrath—the punishment had to fit the crime.

After I killed him, the spaceport was overrun as well. Republic ships on the ground were overtaken and destroyed, literally ripped to shreds by the masses. The ships that managed to escape were fired at from the ground.

The Republic militia—a pitiful force, really—responded, but they did not have the air power to subjugate the revolutionaries, and so after some brief posturing, the small Doliani reserve army forced them into a retreat. The planet was now cut off from the Republic.

The Republic navy at the time was not really a centralized entity. Their main fleet operated almost exclusively in the Core. On the rim, there were regional fleets that consisted mostly of poor men and women who turned to military service because they had nothing else. They came from the rim worlds, and so when the planets started revolting (dozens followed in Doliani's wake), a good chunk of the Republic navy went with them. The secession was greater than anyone had anticipated, and no one had foreseen that so many planets would do it at once.

I was not directly involved at this point, though, but surely you can see that the sheer breadth of the revolution reveals the negligence of the Republic. The institution was fragile anyway, and now the abused planets were simply not going to stand for it.

Really, why would _anyone _want to be part of a system in which they have no say? Forget the Jedi, forget the crimes of the Republic military and senate, forget everything other than the representation; and you still have enough of a reason to justify secession. There was no reason to be a part of a country that obviously did not want them. Us.

A nation that did not want us.

I joined them eventually. I don't want you to think I joined simply because Elyana died. Nothing would further from the truth. I've already shown you that I believed—for quite some time—that the Jedi were slowly ruining my life, they had ruined my family's life, and that I believe the Republic to be harsh, corrupt, and unredeemable.

And it was unredeemable. That is why we had to break from it. We couldn't change it from within, so we had to get away from it. And I wanted to get away from it too. I would love to destroy it, to destroy the Jedi, but that was not practical. So this is what we had to do instead. The Republic had taken Elyana from me, and had likely killed my family on Cstephon. The Republic and Jedi were in a symbiotic relationship—they supported and fed each other, the condoned each other's unholy crusades against liberty and democracy, and they degraded society.

But before I could clearly organize those thoughts…I still mourned for Elyana.

Not a day goes by that I don't think of her. Especially not now that I've started this book.

I did not join the revolution because of Elyana's death. On the contrary…she was the last thing that kept me loyal to the Republic and the Jedi. It was only because of her that I was even considering going back. It was only because of her that I was going through the charade of arresting Ingres in the first place.

What hurts the most is that…I know that…if I didn't love her…she would likely still be alive.

Can you imagine the sort of devastating self-doubt that kind of knowledge perpetuates? It's enough to destroy your mind…to turn you insane. But I'm not insane…not yet…

I could have lived a decent life if I hadn't fallen in love with her. A boring, normal, standard life. But with her I was given a few months of bliss and then years of unspeakable pain. Was it worth the trade? Is it better to, for a little while, have the one you love and then be miserable than to be happy without her?

I don't know. But it hurts to think about it. I feel almost selfish. If I hadn't pursued her…she would still be alive. And she would be none the wiser. She would…she would even be _happy_. I think…Elyana was perhaps my greatest moral failure.

That's why I flew into a rage. Kalkannis had destroyed _everything. _ Had he not stupidly worn his Jedi robes that day, maybe no one would have fired at him. Then he would not have reflected that blaster shot into my Elyana. Had he not gotten lost the previous day…maybe none of this might have happened. Had he not been such an imbecile! I had to kill him. How could I not? If someone repeatedly interferes with your life and irrevocably damages everything that holds it together, don't you have a right to fight back? Aren't you justified? Doliani was justified to fight back. And _I _was justified to fight back. I had to kill Kalkannis before even _more _tragedy befell me.

Now his "murder" is one of the charges against me for this upcoming trial. I will be found guilty of the murder of Andury Kalkannis, because I am a heinous Sith Dark Jedi who killed his friend for no other reason than he was in the way. That is the "official" story…but it is so far from the truth it is revolting. He had to be dispatched, before he did anything more to me.

If only they knew _me_. If only they knew my motives, my reasons, my justifications, then they would know I did not "murder" Kalkannis. I was protecting myself. And I was avenging my poor Elyana. But they do not know these things. The legal system is broken—they only know the facts. I launched an "unprovoked attack" on Kalkannis and "murdered him in cold blood in front of hundreds of people." That's all they know—and that's why I am doomed. But it's so _wrong._

But even so, I would not change a thing about his death. The man who killed Elyana does not deserve life.

But dwelling on this does nothing for me. It's over. It happened. That's it. Elyana is gone.

She died… my _love _died.

Thoughts like this swam around my head like lightening in the early days of the revolution.

I didn't participate much, at all, as Doliani forced the Republic out of this space, so I can't really provide an accurate recounting of the events. I stayed in some apartment that Theodoric gave me. I avoided everything. I wanted to leave, but I couldn't. I just sulked. In this time, most of the entire outer rim nearby Doliani (which is close to Garos IV) had turned against the Republic. They had nearly simultaneously banded together to throw off their yokes. Although their revolutions were not as quick or easy as Doliani's, most of them succeeded. A few planets, like Muunilist, were unable to repel the Republic and stayed under its jurisdiction, but separated from the rest of the Republic they would not hold out long. Several major mid-Rim planets also joined us. The scattered and bewildered Republic militia force did not know what to do. They did not even know where to respond. Hundreds of planets had all defected and there was not one point where they could begin retaliating. They just had to take it.

Onderon defected, which remained the closest planet to the core. They, as always, however, were doing their own thing. You could never tell Onderon what to do. In the outer rim, though, Doliani provided most of the initiative for the secession. Most of the planets that revolted where in the area, or farther out into the Outer Rim. Several of them were on the Perlemian Trade Route.

In the meantime, the rim worlds were solidifying their relationship, forming a new union, and scraping together a makeshift military. That is where I entered.

It came to pass that eventually Theodoric showed himself at my miserable apartment. It had been some time since the initial surge. Doliani had strengthened its political system, gotten the Emperor on the boat, and replaced Ingres with Theodoric, his natural successor. They may not have needed him as a senator, but they were still important in the leadership of the planet.

He came into my place and seemed, at first, to be horrified at how little I cared about anything. I looked a mess. My hair was surely unkempt and growing quite long at this point, and since it is naturally thick, it was quite hard to tame. I hadn't shaven in many days, and so I had grown a substantial beard that was likewise untamed. My red eyes were sunken and dark circles enveloped them.

He came in and did his best to act natural. He was like some kind of specter to me. He was almost my opposite. He came to talk to me, and I _needed _someone like this to help. I needed this man—my doppelganger.

"Aetius," he said, "you can't sulk like this forever."

I just grunted.

"I know you loved her," he said, "but you must go on. Things have been set in motion."

"I can't stop thinking about her," I said.

"I never said you should," he replied, sitting down on a chair across from me (I was on the bed).

I clasped my hands between my knees and looked down.

I find it nearly impossible to detail the nature of my relationship with Theodoric. All logic indicates that I should have hated him after what had happened. He was very responsible for what had happened. He was in control of _everything_. But I felt safe around him, like he knew everything that was happening.

He was a genius. That is the simple fact of the matter.

But try as I might to avoid it, I was somehow drawn to him. He could influence my thoughts, he could tell me what to do. He could _help _me, I thought. He was strong enough and smart enough to make this revolution work. He could give me a way out of this horrible situation I was in. I could do nothing to him. He dominated my existence.

Was he my friend? I do not know. Still I don't. I…I don't know if I can really relate to you how I felt at that time…but I was so lost, so confused, only he offered me a chance to continue my life…to give me purpose. For reasons I do not know…I somehow…_loved _this man. Despite his deceitful calculations and blatant self-service, he was somehow my savior, a refuge.

And I could never blame him for Elyana's death…because nothing he _did _actually caused it. It was all things that _I _did, or that Kalkannis did, or the Jedi, that caused it. He didn't _do _anything but watch us fall into a trap. He had _even _given me a way to avoid all that suffering, but Kalkannis had prevented me from taking it. Theodoric tried to arrange for me a way out. No, it was the _Jedi _that did this to me!

"But you do have to move on," he said to me.

I sighed.

"Remember her now, then," he said, working his charismatic magic.

"Huh?"

"Close your eyes and remember," he suggested.

"Why?"

"Because you like to remember her. It'll help."

I didn't know what to say. I thought for a moment, scratched my chin and then closed my eyes. I began, "She was so beautiful…to me she was perfect—"

"No," he interrupted, "don't just recite the words."

It became slow. I said deliberately, as I closed my eyes, "You can just feel the details. I can see her smile. Hear her laugh. Touch her hand. Feel her heartbeat. All the bits and pieces that you never bothered to put into words. Those little quirks and idiosyncrasies that you never notice."

I could see her—it was so vivid. But it wasn't a memory. It was something else. Almost like a premonition. I could see her face…so beautiful…and so sad…

"Even if you don't want to…you remember it," I said. "All these…extreme moments. You put everything together and you get the feel of a person. And you remember enough to know how much you miss her. And much you hate the person who took her away…"

Theodoric was silent as he looked at me. He was calm, deliberate. He exhaled slowly and said, "I understand that this is painful."

I said nothing.

"What are you going to about it, then?"

"I don't know," I said.

He stared at me.

"What do you want me to do?"

"I think you know. You have an opportunity here that most in your position would beg for."

"You want me to join your revolution now?" I asked. "I might have earlier…but now I just want nothing. I want to go to sleep and never wake up."

"Don't talk like that. You have a chance to pay them back what they did to you—for destroying your life."

"By doing what? Just fighting? You've already won."

"They'll come back," he said, "and no—not just fighting. You're obviously skilled that way, but you could be more. You could be the representative of what is so wrong with the Republic, with the Jedi."

"What are you getting at?"

"Aetius," he said forcefully, "you could be the head of this whole thing. _You _could be the leader."

"I am no leader," I said.

"Maybe you've had no experience, but you don't have to lead the nation. You would be the…figurehead. The face of our revolution. Think of it. We create and sustain our new nation. You are the face of a new country. You are the best example of what went wrong. A Jedi—the most _Republic _someone could get. And you threw off their shackles and joined us. You liberated us from their brutal occupation. We could give you an honorary position in the army—you could be the father of our nation."

"Why me? Why do you care about me?"

"Frankly," he said, "we need you. I need you. People never trust politicians, no matter what the situation is. And you have no connections to any of these planets. The other worlds would look to you. You were a Jedi—and are therefore wise, powerful, and capable. _Everyone _would turn to you. _You _are the answer to the Republic."

"It's too much. I'm no hero or savior. I just want to be left alone."

"Of course, I can't make you do this. Only ask."

He lingered for a moment before walking towards the door. I had my head down, but he then stated as he opened the door, "Just think of what their reaction will be when they realize that it was Aetius Glendower that defeated them. That humiliated them. That exposed them as frauds."

I thought.

"And that Gamaliel bastard would surely regret it."

This, I had to admit, appealed to me. I didn't have anything to live for anymore, aside from revenge. And a war against the Republic…that was an opportunity for revenge that few were granted.

I had to think about it.

"You realize," he continued, beginning to smile somewhat frighteningly. "You and I—we're brothers, Aetius."

I looked him in the eyes, confused.

"You're a son of the rim, just like I am. You were taken, and now you've returned to us. You are the prodigal son, and I've been waiting here for you to come back. It was you that made this possible. We're in this together now, bound by fate. We're not like _them_," he said, meaning the core, "we're different, stronger, more righteous. We can change things. You and I. You believe in these bonds by fate, do you not?"

I did not say anything, but I know that my eyes told him everything. He could read me—he saw that I did.

He was going to leave, I could see. He turned at the door and then looked back me askance. He said calmly, "I need you now, my brother. Just as you need me." He opened the door, nodded to me, and then bowed out.

I spent a few days thinking, and I began to see his wisdom. It was difficult because I really, at that point, didn't want to do anything. I just wanted to retreat into nothingness. But I couldn't do that, and it grew more and more obvious that, as I was already on Doliani, my decision had been made for me. I had tacitly supported them in slaying Kalkannis in the public square and then fleeing from the spotlight. I could join them and help lead the revolution, or just sit there and watch it happen, having been one of the catalysts regardless.

I decided that I would join him.

I could indeed take the fight to the Jedi. I could try to pay them back for ruining my life. For thrusting me into this position, for trying to make me like them. I had nothing more to live for. Nothing else could or would keep me going.

And that, my noble reader, is how I joined the Revolution.

It had no name, as it still doesn't. It was known simply as "The Revolution" or "The Cause."

And now you see how I joined it. This is the end of the first part of my book. You see now how even an idealistic fool, such as I, can be shown how wicked and corrupted the Jedi are. You see how we who fought are not Sith, and most of all are not evil. This is why I spent so much time on all of this: on the backstory, on the feelings, the emotions, my relationships with Kalkannis, Theodoric, and Elyana. These things are left out of the history books, but now you have seen the context of my actions. You see why I hate the Jedi and the Republic, you _see_. Now you understand why I was the enemy of the Republic, why I fought the war. The war is already known to you—even if you know no history, you know that we eventually lost. I am, after all, in prison. But you did not know how we got to the position we did, you did not know what propelled me to this place.

Now you do.

I am but a man, just as you are. And I got caught up in these events. But if _I _didn't stop the Jedi, who would? Who would prevent them from destroying more lives? Stealing more children? Driving more parents to their graves? Who would prevent the Republic from unfair taxation and unjust treatment, if not me? Why _shouldn't_ I take this opportunity to stop their reign of terror?

There was no reason. And I joined them—my brothers.

Wholeheartedly.


	11. Clockworks of Revolution

_Author's Notes: Hey everyone, I'm back. Sorry about the delay, I've suffered some technical difficulties, so I wasn't able to update for a while. Fortunately I still have this story. Sorry to those of you who PM'd me since the last chapter, if I hadn't responded to you it was because of the problems. But anyway, onto the story._

_I must mention, though, that in this chapter I had a tremendous help. __**Gipper 40 **__gave me so many suggestions concerning the path of the war and the planets involved that I could almost say that he co-wrote it. Thanks a lot, man, for all your help._

**Clockworks of Revolution**

A doctor visited me in prison today. My trial is coming up in a few days, and the Republic is very interested to see whether or not I will live long enough to face execution (I haven't been sentenced yet, but I know I will). I could see in the doctor's eyes the state of my condition—this illness, whatever it is, is killing me.

Of course he was of no help—not that he'd want to help. I could tell he loathed even standing in my presence.

I have grown weak because of this illness, and apparently there's nothing to be done about it. No one knows what it is. All the symptoms and tests say tuberculosis, but that takes years to kill you. I've had but mere weeks with this affliction and it is turning my lungs to jelly. It is _like _tuberculosis, but it is different, it works faster. They think it might have been a side-effect of the radiation, but none of them can properly diagnose. But I don't give a damn about that, I've been going to my grave for a long time.

What's important now is my past, not my future.

Eventually I was to join my Dolianian colleagues to do some planning. There was still a war to manage, of course, and our new country needed to be built. An infrastructure needed to be established. And battles needed to be fought. There was much to do.

I met many of them in the Imperial Palace, including the Emperor Cadyn III himself.

He was an unsightly creature; morbidly obese from over-eating and from lack of exercise, he preferred to "manage" his planet from his bed. And, on rare occasions, his throne. But since he was a symbol and had no real power, his "managing" usually consisted only of eating. However, he did have a role as the head of state, so we naturally had to include him.

We were in his throne room, with a long table set up with him at the head. He was so fat that we had to move the table a few feet out in order to fit him on the chair. Sometimes I called him King Lipid. But never to his face…

Gausin Arnom was there. As well as Ephraim Delacroix and Theodoric. The Dolianian chief of staff, Aechen Marcke had joined us. Onderon had also sent their Fleet Admiral (as they had the largest navy, by far, of the secessionists) who was named Harun Galland as well as a diplomat of theirs (I am ashamed to say I do not remember his name). There was also a younger man, a Doliani soldier, by the name of Catiline present.

We were situated all around the large table, talking about what to do. Theodoric had taken it upon himself to introduce me to the people. They were familiar with me already.

"The Jedi!" the Emperor had said jovially, "I am pleased to meet you! I welcome you as though you were one of Doliani's own."

He gestured for me to sit down.

The main topic of conversation was going to be how we'd manage the war. Doliani, while a strong cultural force in the outer rim, did not have the power or resources to wage a long war. The only planet that _could _was Onderon, which was why two of their representatives were there. But even they were not an economical powerhouse. We needed outside aid.

"I congratulate you on your success, Theodoric," said the Emperor, "we are now totally independent! And the Republic has not bothered us in days!"

Arnom calmed down the ecstatic emperor, said, "The Republic will inevitably respond. It will just take them a while to do it. They have not had to deal with an armed conflict for centuries, so they will be slow, but they will come."

This was right. There was no hope for a peaceful resolution. The Republic would not stand for nearly half of the rim seceding. There would be an escalation of conflict. It was only a matter of when.

"Indeed," said Admiral Galland, "too many worlds have seceded for them to ignore us, but as of yet we have not convinced them that we are a formidable threat, that gives us time."

"And how much?" asked Theodoric.

"I do not know," said the Admiral, "perhaps a month or so. We have a small window to act before they mobilize."

"Then we will have to move wisely and deliberately," said Arnom.

"Right, good show," said the Emperor.

I watched these men silently. The Emperor was clearly an idiot who had no real knowledge of anything. Delacroix remained his usual taciturn self, while Arnom and Theodoric clearly knew what they were doing. The Onderonians were their typical bombastic selves, but this Catiline fellow did not talk at all. He did not come off as a grump like Delacroix, rather he seemed to be honored to be there, but did not think it was his place to speak.

I don't want to bore you with the details, so I'll try to summarize as much as possible.

Essentially, the Republic did not take us that seriously yet. Worlds had always threatened to secede, and Onderon had a habit of putting up a fuss every century or so, so this turn of events was not exactly unprecedented. Don't let me confuse you, though, the Republic was in panic mode, as no one thought this many worlds would secede, but they did not give us much of a chance to last. As a rule, most coalitions like this hardly last a month before caving. We had to think of a way to break this rule.

I had a plan.

"We will need," began Arnom, "to convince the Republic that we are strong enough that they do not want to fight a prolonged conflict. If we can show them that it will cost too much to put us down, then they will leave us to our devices."

"But how to do that?" asked Galland, "nothing we can say will have any gravity unless we are able to achieve a military victory. Only then will they back down."

"We must also find a way to build an infrastructure out here—_we _cannot afford to fight a prolonged conflict _either_," said Delacroix.

It became clear to me that Delacroix favored the economy over the military

"Then we'll just need to do _both_," said Arnom.

"And how do you propose we do that, hmm?" challenged Galland.

That was when I interrupted. "Muunilist," I said, "is that still under Republic jurisdiction?"

Arnom looked at me, and I saw a sly grin creep across his face. Theodoric answered and said, "Yes, they control Muunilist."

"What is the situation there?" I asked.

Galland answered, "The Republic has a vested interest in keeping Muunilist from seceding. The planet is sympathetic to us, and it appears that there was a short conflict there, but the Republic held onto the world. What, precisely, are you proposing here?"

"Well," I said, "if we can break the Republic grip on Muunilist, we can finance our war and our new country."

"Muunilist is _heavily _fortified," said Galland, "that would be a difficult fight, and one that I am not sure we could win."

"But the planet's location is of utmost importance," I said, "we _need _it."

"And you believe we should attack there first?" asked Theodoric.

I then began detailing my plan.

I said, "If we can take Muunilist, not only can we finance the war, but we can also stockpile our arsenal. Because of how important the planet is, being the economic powerhouse that it is, it is very heavily armed. Since it's so far out on the rim, as you know, it has to protect itself from pirates and the Hutts and other scum. If we can break the Republic blockade of the planet, then we can seize these weapons for ourselves."

"What kind of weapons are we talking about?" asked General Marcke, who had previously been silent.

"Defense shields, prototype orbital station schematics, as well as nuclear weapons," I answered.

"And how do you know this?" asked Delacroix.

"I've been there," I answered.

That assured them. Actually, my trials had been on Muunilist, and my mission had been concerned with these weapons. A known terrorist group had absconded with a bomb and I was involved in tracking them down. How ironic.

"I see," said Marcke. "We'll have to think about this, but it sounds like a legitimate plan."

"But that's not all," I said, "if we take Muunilist, we will have an even greater opportunity on our hands. Given it's important location, we could really disrupt the Republic's trade routes if we…"

I was then interrupted by Theodoric. "The Braxtant Run!" he said for me.

"Exactly," I responded, "if—"

Another interruption. "Damn!" said Galland, "you're right. We could seize the run if we take Muunilist. All we'd have to do then is take Bandomeer and that bloated pile of debris that is Taris and we'll control both ends of the trade route."

"Not only that," I began again, "but we could block off the Hydian Way as well. We already have Phindar on board with us, as they are fond of fighting the Republic at any opportunity, so if we take the Braxtant Run we could cut off this trade route as well."

"That is the only way to the corporate sector," said Arnom. "We could bring the Republic to its knees if we controlled all those territories—they'd _have _to listen to our demands."

"Indeed, splendid plan!" said the Emperor.

"But what of military action?" asked Marcke. "This wild hypothesizing is all fine and dandy, but we do not have the means to do this, at least not that I am aware of."

Arnom shook his head, said, "We'll have to move one step at a time. We must strike at Muunilist first, as that will give us economic support we need."

"But then that will just provoke the Republic into a full scale attack," said Marcke.

"That is what the weapons are for," I said.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"We threaten them with the warheads on Muunilist," I replied.

"How, exactly?"

"Give them to us," said Galland.

"Like hell!" said Delacroix, "we have no inkling of what _your _motives are. You Onderonians like to do things without telling anyone."

Galland bristled at the charge, but he said as civilly as possible, "We are the closest planet to the core and will likely need them anyway, but if we can arm Onderon with these powerful, prototype weapons, then we can threaten to hit them on their own turf. If we take both of these trade routes, the Republic will have to move quickly and try to get them back. If we can convince them that retaking them would be too costly, then we _will _win the war. If you give us the weapons, we can threaten to glass Commenor, or even…Corellia. They wouldn't _dare _let that happen. They'd meet our demands."

"That is insane enough to work," I said.

"Or insane enough to galvanize them into action," said Delacroix, "the Republic is slow and ponderous, but if you hit them that hard it will be like striking a wasp nest with a stick. Why don't you ask the Mandalorians how well that goes over?"

"The Mandalorians never had Muunilist on their side," said Marcke, "they were too stupid to knock out the Republic's infrastructure. They only wanted a war, and eventually Republic used its resources against them. But if we can bring them to their knees economically, the physical war will be tertiary."

Delacroix grumbled.

"I cast my vote for Mr. Glendower's plan!" said the Emperor emphatically.

"We've decided nothing yet," Arnom said diplomatically.

Of course we hadn't, but we were going to go with my idea. Everyone but Delacroix was on board, and he could not resist all by himself.

After that there was food—King Lipid could not go very long without eating—and general lounging around. It irritated me. However, after all this "mingling" was over, I was introduced to another man who would play a large role in the development of my story. He had already been present, but had said nothing the whole time.

Theodoric led him over to me, hoping to introduce me. He said, "Aetius, this is Lieutenant Lucius Catiline." The man held out his hand for me to shake. It took it and studied his face. He was a younger man than I, and had brown eyes and light brown hair. His face was stern, but still youthful. Theodoric continued, "I understand he's a very promising officer, General Marcke recommended him specifically."

"Recommended for what?" I asked.

"To be your aide," said Theodoric. "You _are _the proprietor of a very lofty position in this revolution, and as such you will need an aide-de-camp. Since you're not officially a military man, he can help you."

Catiline nodded, "Pleased to meet you, sir. I've heard a lot about you. You are the man of the hour."

"I…am?"

Theodoric slapped me on the shoulder, said, "But of course! You are the scourge of the Republic! The man who defied that great nation for the sake of another. Just try walking outside, you'll see that you are the hero of Doliani now—nay, the entire rim."

I was awestruck. Me? Why me? How did I end up in this position?

"Come, let's look," said Theodoric.

He led me to the Palace balcony, which overlooked the very square where Elyana had died…and where I had killed Kalkannis. It was a very scenic spot, and I have a feeling that the Emperor had used it for public appearances. At least, he had used it back when he could still walk.

Catiline stood behind me, and Theodoric was to my right. We overlooked the marble railing and I glanced about at the people who were filing to and fro. "Why are we here?" I asked.

"Just wait until one of them notices you."

At length someone down below did. And then one by one they all began to look up. Before I knew it throngs of people were gathering below us, all clamoring at the bottom of the palace, yelling and screaming. But they were not angry…they were…excited. I felt like a dictator—standing there…receiving thunderous accolades.

"Why?" I asked. "I'm just an ex-Jedi. Nothing more."

"But that's where you're wrong, my brother," said Theodoric. "You're _their _ex-Jedi. One of the wisest men in the galaxy—someone who came here, saw their plight, and switched to their side. You're already a hero, Lenny, whether you want to be or not."

I looked back to Catiline, who seemed to be proud to take in the scene. He said, "It's an honor to serve with you, sir."

And that was my initiation to the revolution. We had much work to do.

Slowly we had to assemble the forces necessary to take Muunilist. The planet _was _under tight watch by the Republic. It had attempted to break away when we did, but the uprising was put down. Now the Republic was hurrying to reinforce the blockade and hoping to keep the planet in line. We would need to assemble a large strike force to break the siege, but once we did we knew that the planet would quickly join us. All we had to do was dent the Republic's armor.

We scraped the bottom of the barrel for a navy. Doliani had a modest fleet, though it paled in comparison to any of the core planets'. Onderon had by far the largest fleet and would therefore provide the bulk of the war effort. We successfully convinced the outlaws at Phindar that they should aid us, and they were more than happy to stick it to the Republic.

Several other of the larger rim worlds provided some help. And we…had some clandestine dealings with the Hutts. They "loaned" us some ships and crewmembers.

The plan was a simple one. The Republic did not know where we were going to strike, or if we would at all, so we were going to hit Muunilist with everything that we had. Hopefully the surprise would be enough for us to smash through the blockade.

We would leave as many ships as we thought reasonable in reserve—either they would help the main fleet take Muunilist if things got too dicey, or, if the attack went well, they would jet off to Bandomeer and take the other end of the Braxtant Run. If all went according to plan, then we would seize control of an entire trade route, as well as halving another one, effectively strangling the Republic through financial means. We could then threaten to halt trade and destroy their economy if they did not grant us independence and stand down. If that didn't work, Onderon would threaten with nuclear retaliation.

We planned to convince the Republic that fighting us would be too costly. And you know how they see everything in terms of cost and benefit. They would be made to see light.

With incredible speed we assembled the strike force. It was a haphazard, rag-tag fleet, and it was composed of all sorts of different nationalities. Hell, we did not even have a regulation uniform for them all to wear. The ships all looked different from each other.

But what we lacked in these regards, we made up for in dedication and cohesion. We were united with purpose. We had a cause to fight for, every one of us, and that was something that could not be said of the Republic soldiers who, we knew, just did not want to be there.

I stood on the bridge of the _Amphion_, the largest battleship we possessed, which, shockingly, belonged to Doliani. The robes I wore were black, which was the standard color for Doliani's military apparel. It distinguished me from other Jedi, but still gave me that Jedi aura that the people seemed to be so fond of.

The captain of the ship, a frustrating old man named Tullius, had prepared everything—we were to await for the word to jump to hyperspace. The day had come, and we were about to begin the full-scale war. I was going with the main fleet to Muunilist, where I would oversee the invasion. Catiline was with me. I irritated the captain, as he thought my presence was impeding his ability to manage his crew, but I thought he was fine. The crew seemed ecstatic to have me there, which _did _feel good. I felt welcome somewhere for the first time in…what seemed like forever.

At length the signal came and we launched our entire patchwork fleet into the blue vortex that is hyperspace.

The time in transit passed almost instantly, and we fell into orbit around Muunilist. I could see the Republic ships blockading it from a distance. As soon as we exited hyperspace, they began moving around spastically.

We descended on them like carrion birds. It was magnificent. I saw the Republic blockade scatter in confusion. They had clearly no inkling of this attack at all, and they seemed to be woefully inept at that. I watched the little streaks of the ships, their superimposed hulls over the horizon of the planet, scatter in every direction.

It was a brilliant stroke for us. We drove straight through them. The _Amphion _led the way as we charged through the blockade and cracked their holding of the planet. It was the quintessential surprise attack—executed to perfection.

The display was almost breathtaking, despite its deadly nature. Lasers flew all around the void of space. I saw Republic ship after Republic ship light up in flames. Some of them, lost in the confusion, collided with each other. It was tremendous.

As we punctured their line, I ordered the navigators, "Get closer to the planet. We'll need to get down to the surface and establish order. This planet is under our jurisdiction now."

I got into a dropship and flew down with a large assembly of ground troops—mostly Onderonians or mercenaries from Phindar. We hurled through the air and landed right in the middle of a skirmish on the ground. Right near the Republic Embassy—a veritable hotspot on any planet.

As we got out a laser flew over my head and hit the top of our dropship. I activated my lightsaber and waved it forward. The men around me charged into the fray. The Republic ground troops at the Embassy had been wedged into a corner, fighting for survival against the raucous crowds on Muunilist. Until then they had been holding their ground as the masses were not organized, but we cut a swathe through them easily.

Quickly they surrendered, and we found our first prize.

"Master Glendower!" cried out one of the soldiers. "We've captured a diplomat!"

I then caught sight of the man as they dragged him out of the wrecked building. He was bleeding from the head and he grunted as they threw him down at my feet. He cautiously looked up and said, "A…Jedi?"

"What should we do with him?" asked another soldier.

I thought for a moment before responding, "Imprison him. Then ransom him." He looked at me in horror, but at the same time was surprised that we weren't killing him. I knelt down next to him, for some reason compelled to tell him something. I leaned in close and whispered in his ear quietly, "The Jedi abandoned me and left me to fend for myself. These people have come to my aid. I was ransomed. I _am _the ransom. Remember my face, and know that I am the bane of the Jedi and your conniving Republic."

To this day I am still unsure why I said this. I don't even know precisely what it means. I think, because of my delusions of grandeur at that moment, that I had taken it upon myself to embody the entire revolution. I felt that I represented some kind of trade that had taken place. As though my switching sides is what propelled this conflict. I do know this, though, that the _Jedi _did essentially sell me to the highest bidder, ideologically speaking. Because of their twisted, backwards, and abusive ideals I was outcast—someone who disagreed with them. You could say that they ransomed me, to a group more progressive than they.

At least, that's what I think now. As of then, those ideas were somewhat cloudy, insubstantial.

I thought it was a sound plan. I turned to look as they hauled him away and saw that a huge crowd had formed around me, curving around the embassy—just like on Doliani. This time I decided to say something.

I jumped up onto a large slab of concrete that towered above the staircase to the embassy and addressed the crowd. I said, "People of Muunilist! You are no longer under the jurisdiction of the Republic! We come as liberators!"

There was a deafening roar of approval. I smiled to myself. I had done it.


	12. Backlash

_Author's Notes: Okay, another update. Here's the main section of the war—which ended up being far shorter than I thought it would be. First person tends to do that. Oh, and apologies in advance for my somewhat blatant self-homage, there. I couldn't think of another name to use. :P_

_Thanks, again, to the reviews. You're awesome._

**Backlash**

Someone took a picture of me standing on that concrete slab, and I've had to relive that moment almost every day since I was brought back to Coruscant. I've seen it so many times that it's been more imbedded into my mind than the actual event was. When I try to think of that moment I remember only the picture and not what I could see.

So now I see myself, in those dark black robes, standing in front of thousands of crazed rebels, holding my hand up in this ridiculously dramatic pose. My hair is frayed all over the place and you can see that devious smirk behind my beard. I think that the reason that the Republic latched onto this picture is that it is the archetypal image of the Sith Lord. There I am, clad in black, inciting people to kill, maim, fight, whatever.

Because of that, not only was I the figurehead for the Outer Rim's revolution, the Republic also saw me as the priority target. I represented the war for both sides, now. I see now why Theodoric preferred to stay out of sight. He could remain hidden and avoid much of the unwanted consequences that come from that kind of exposure. I was, as he had predicted, the face of the revolution.

The most absurd thing was that ridiculous event is where they derived my "darth" name from. I've heard it said that I went by the name Darth Ransom when I was with the rebels. Such a grievous misrepresentation I have not seen (although it should be expected at this point). No doubt it was a confusion of the enigmatic words I told that diplomat. Even I do not really know what they meant. It is as if they are desperately scraping at every event in my past in order to scrounge up some kind of proof of my "dark side" tendencies. It would be laughable if it weren't so wicked.

But enough of that…

Now, the war is certainly known to you. There is not much _new _that I can write about, most of this has been committed to the history books, and because they convey only facts about battles won and lost, they are, by and large, correct. I hope you do not find that surprising, but the war was never what I wanted to write in this book. I wanted more to address motivations, feelings, metaphysical truths and the like. I know that this is where the judgments about me are made. That is what needs correction. This…the war. It is what it is. We lost, and I make no apologies for what happened.

But we came close to victory. I _could _have won. I know I could have. But once again the deceitful trickery—the betrayals—raised their ugly head. I should have known by then that I could not live my life without those who I thought my friends raising their hands against me. But I didn't. I was naïve as I was stupid. To put my trust in any of these people was a colossal miscalculation.

After the siege at Muunilinst, everything went exactly as we had planned. It was almost too perfect. We had no right to believe that things would go as well as they did. Several months passed and we won victory after victory (most of them small, but they were still significant). The Republic was being stymied at every opportunity. Our foundations grew stronger. The Republic grew confused and began panicking. We seized all the major trade routes we had hoped to, and we began stockpiling devastating weapons on Onderon. Everything was moving flawlessly.

We conquered several smaller worlds, increased our number, and began setting up a _real _"representative" system. We were even taking preliminary action on determining the capital world of our new country (which was undoubtedly going to be Doliani, regardless of how Onderon felt about it).

From there, we began to try to "negotiate" with the Republic. They were, of course, threatening with military retaliation for our "brazen invasion" of Muunilinst. Realistically, they were more lost than they cared to admit. And every day more planets joined our cause. They were very afraid for their future.

The thing of it was, we _had _the economic upper hand on them and they knew it, though we were still somewhat headless and decentralized. But every day we grew stronger, so we knew that they would try to act as soon as possible.

We communicated with them, and we discerned their fright. We demanded that they stand down, cease their military activities. If they did this, then Theodoric promised to unblock the trade routes and allow the Republic to start breathing again.

This period lasted almost the majority of the war. There were frequent skirmishes, but no more major action. The Republic was extremely hesitant to move because of our control of trade and also our retaliatory threats. It was almost a phony war; we lingered in this limbo for…a long time. I want to say nearly a year, but I cannot adequately tell. The historical facts are there for you, though, if you can find them.

I, of course, want the Republic and the Jedi Order dead. But that was not something we could really do. Not yet. We needed, first, to establish ourselves. However, we had the Republic where we wanted them, our foot on their throat. I never wanted anything more than to see the Jedi suffer for ruining my life, but the rest of our "council" balked. I would have to settle with jacking the Republic up beyond all reason, and that was okay with me too.

But regardless, what's done is done. We made these demands, and the Republic, at first, considered them. The negotiations were long and brutal.

Would you believe the lofty position that I held in this conflict? In those days—it was incredible. I was the one they were afraid of. I was the one that made our demands to the Senate. My image was projected in the main chamber of the congress, and I stood there making a speech about how we demanded the Republic stand down or they would suffer the consequences. I stood there, my image towering above that sniveling Chancellor Tiberius. I'm sure Gamaliel was in the room too—having to watch me stand above him. How wonderful it felt to oppose them. And we _had _the power to hurt them.

I was the man that the Republic was afraid of. I was the symbol of someone who had resisted their power and their sedentary, self-absorbed lifestyles. For all these months I was the very image of terror to them. They feared me. Little children would be told stories about how, if they didn't go to bed on time, Aetius Glendower would get them. It would be enough to make me laugh if I did not just enjoy lording this superiority over my most hated nemeses. They deserved every minute of it.

There were months of diplomatic tussles, each day with us growing stronger, but the Republic did not cave. They vowed to fight, to reclaim the territory they had lost, and to defeat us. That meant we would have to deal with them again, and then if we could repel (not even destroy, just repel) their fleet, we could then strike fast and hard. We could glass one of their precious inner worlds and show them how dangerous we really were.

And that set the stage for the climax of the war.

The Republic was _reeling_. Their economy was going into chaos because of our throttling of those two major trade routes. We were choking the life out of them and they knew it. Their markets were fluctuating so wildly that they could not get a firm grasp on it. We would send them straight into a stifling depression if they did not do something.

It took weeks, but finally we learned what was happening. The Republic was moving. We bought information from the Hutts and we knew they were going for Onderon. They had to knock out Onderon—claim an outpost in our territory. As the most militaristic of the secessionist worlds, it was naturally their first target.

We, likewise, determined that this military action was unacceptable. We prepared our fleet to not only meet them, but also were began preparations to use the weapons. We were going to quickly strike the core and hit Commenor—show them what they were dealing with. That is correct. We had decided on liquefying Commenor. All we had to do was damage their expeditionary force enough to keep them out of our territory, give us enough time to launch the attack.

But let it be clear—this was a last-ditch effort by the Republic. If this didn't work, then they would have no choice but to let us do whatever we willed. The country was stagnant—as it always is—and lacked the drive to endure such an economic storm. They were too used to everything the way it was, and if we screwed up their system long enough they would give us whatever we wanted.

And so the stage was set for the climactic battle.

Before the battle, though, something incredible happened.

I was on the ship, the _Amphion_, in my quarters. We had broken up to prepare an ambush for the Republic. We knew where they were going, and we decided to meet them. While most of us Dolianians were in one group, Theodoric, in an effort to maintain some collaboration, stayed on an Onderonian battlecruiser—the _Oltremare_. He was not a military man, so his purpose there was to remind them of our alliance. Something that planet would not infrequently forget.

Right as we were leaving Doliani and preparing to move towards Onderon, something happened to me.

It was bizarre, and I don't know if I can adequately describe it to you. It _felt _as though I was losing my mind. I had briefly sunken into despair. Our return to Doliani from Muunilinst had played hell with my nerves. When we got back to the planet I suddenly experienced a surge of emotion. I felt all the sights, smells, sounds, feelings I experienced when I first landed there with my beloved Elyana. The strain was terrible and I was descending into dark despair in those last days there.

But as I waited in my quarters, in the dark, trying to sleep, I couldn't think clearly. My mind was slipping all over the place. I could not track my thoughts and I could not really discern what I wanted to do or what I needed to do. It was not unlike the moments just before the onset of sleep. You feel your thoughts begin to morph into a dreamlike haze, and you try desperately hold onto rationality before it finally abandons you to the dreamworld.

This is what was happening. I was mentally disoriented, but then suddenly I experienced a moment, just _one moment _of _perfect_ clarity. It was sensational. Suddenly everything made sense, suddenly everything in my life was illuminated. "A life!" I had thought at the time, "A whole life is worth just this moment!"

And then I lapsed into oblivion.

I suspect that you do not know much about Force visions. Even most Jedi do not receive them unless the circumstances are most dire. But they are not what you'd imagine. They are not exactly clear when you first are subjected to them. They are confused, dark, and foggy. They are not explicit, and when you have the vision—in my case, premonition—you know exactly what it means immediately. Just as in a dream, you know perfectly what it means in the dream, even if afterwards it seems totally nonsensical. And that is how it was. I _knew, _immediately, precisely what it meant.

"Catiline!" I called, trying to find the young man.

By the time I found him we were in hyperspace. I took him into my quarters to tell him about what I had just experienced. He was aide, he was supposed to help, right?

"What is it, sir?" he asked, getting worried as noticed my somewhat frantic demeanor.

I explained it to him.

"A force vision?" he asked. "Is this true?"

"It is," I answered. "I have no other way to explain it."

"And you're certain?"

I nodded.

He said aloud, as if unsure I was talking truth, asked, "One of our leaders will die in the upcoming battle?"

It was almost rhetorical, but I answered anyway. "Yes. Of this I am certain. I don't know how to explain it, but I just _know_. I don't know who will win or lose, but one of us in charge is going to die."

"Do you know if it will be you?"

"I—" I stuttered. I hadn't even thought of this. "I—I don't know. It may be."

He looked at me very seriously, a terrible look on his face.

At length he said, "Sir, should I tell Theodoric about this?"

"N-no," I stammered, "Catiline. Don't tell _anyone_. It's better if they do not know. It's better to keep them in the dark, carry on as if nothing were amiss."

"I see…sir, if you say so."

I should have known then what would happen, but I was too trusting of this young man. I should have known he was not experienced, not worldly enough, to make the right decisions.

I don't even really know why I told him. It was such a tremendous burden that I just felt I had to. I didn't know what else to do…someone needed to be informed. I needed to let it out, not bottle it up. It was a mistake.

But I had panicked—what, after all, did this mean? One of our leaders would die? That did not mean we would lose the battle, I did not know what it meant. But one of us would die. Would it be me? What about the Onderonian admiral, Gallund? Or what…what if it was Theodoric? That man was like the prop who held us up—without him, my brother, then what? And what if they went without me? Could they?

I would hope so, but I did not know.

I spent some time in that state of confused paralysis. We dropped out of hyperspace over the dead world of Catalaunia. Nothing lived on the planet's surface, it consisted only of rocks. In the background was a majestic scene: binary giants, orbiting each other. But one of the giants had long since collapsed into a black hole. So all you could see was the one giant floating in the distance, streams of its light being sucked into an invisible hole—draining the life out of the star.

We held our position over Catalaunia (which is just in front of Onderon if you're traveling there from Coruscant) and waited. The Republic, we knew from the information we had "learned" was heading that direction. We'd draw them out of hyperspace and then damage their fleet enough for them to reconsider striking Onderon. Then we would immediately send a strike team into the outer core to blast Commenor.

We were not there long before the Republic arrived. Immediately we opened fire. I know we surprised them. Initially the battle was going well. I watched it from the bridge.

There was that beautiful spectrum of color that erupts over the backdrop of space—you see the colors flying, the explosions, the stars. There's a cluster in the distance. And we draw ever nearer to the binary stars, and the black hole death trap. Much of the battle took place just outside of the event horizon, and even were we to somehow stumble across, one would only need to thrust backwards with enough force and you could escape its lethal pull.

The Republic ships were en route to Onderon, hoping to catch the planet in a state of preparation. They knew that Onderon was the metaphorical backbone of our military. Doliani was the only other planet that really had any professional service. Other than that, it was just a ragtag group of pirates, rebels, conscripts, whatever we could find. And so Onderon's continued support was key. The Republic knew this, and knew that if they had any chance to prevent our victory, they had to knock Onderon out, and fast.

We sprung the trap on them beautifully. The same informants who had told us where the Republic was going turned around and told the brass that our fleet was going to be in a different sector. When we showed up on radar—and they dropped out of hyperspace to investigate—they were shocked beyond all reason that our entire fleet had met them.

And that was why things went so well…at first.

As I watched from the bridge, I grew more and more distressed. I could feel the beads of sweat trickling down my temple. My eye would twitch. I clenched my jaw and refused to talk. There was a sense, even with our impending victory, of profound _dread_. Or, perhaps a better word would be _anxiety_.

I began to feel my own mortality. "One of us is going to die," I kept thinking. "It's going to be me. I am going to die. Why else would I have this vision?"

I could feel it. The terror was slowly crawling up my spine. It felt these intangible spasms of fear. I thought it was all going to go to pieces. I watched ship after ship light up in front of our viewport. Each explosion a herald of what my death would be.

Another moment and I may have had a breakdown. But I was not allowed the convenience.

Suddenly our ship rocked sideways! I nearly fell to the ground. Alarms began blaring. Shouts then rose above the din. What were they saying? I strained to hear…and the words hit me right in my stomach.

"Friendly fire!" yelled Captain Tullius.

"It's a direct hit, sir!" cried a lieutenant, "right into the hull. Shields are at 25%! Starboard side is at zero!"

Turbolasers. A massive volley.

I scrambled to me feet, running straight at the young lieutenant. I grabbed him by the shoulders, nearly throwing him to the ground. "Which ship? Which ship fired at us!?"

His words froze me: "the _Oltremare_, sir!"

My mouth dropped. I had scarcely the time to react. Theodoric! Theodoric's ship was firing on us! This was it!

My mind flashed into action. Only one conclusion could be reached: Catiline had told him!

The spineless worm! He had run to Theodoric and told him of my premonition, just as I had advised against! Now Theodoric had taken it upon himself to fulfill the prophecy, and prevent himself from dying. There was no honor, no dignity within this man. Not a shred. When his back was against the wall, he chose merely self-preservation. Nothing was sacred to him in the end. Not even our ideal! He only sought that twisted, strictly human deity: endurance.

"He's betrayed us!" I yelled. "He's betrayed me!"

"Sir!" shouted the lieutenant, but was unsure of what to say after.

"Return fire!" I ordered, "he's with the Republic! He's abandoned us!"

"Who?" asked someone, but the captain interceded.

"Do _not _return fire!" he cried.

"You dare defy me?" I yelled, "our lives are at stake! They will destroy us!"

He wavered. The _Oltremare _began charging up its weapons again. I knew that they saw this. Another strike and we would perish.

"_I _am in charge," I boomed, "I am the revolution! Return fire, before he betrays us all!"

There was deliberation. Hesitation, but the desire for self-preservation on our side won out as well.

The captain resisted. "No!" he shouted. But I was not about to allow my life to end this way. I suddenly struck out and blasted the captain with the force. He flew off of the ground and into the wall, crumbling into the ground like a ragdoll.

"_Do it!_" I ordered.

They grudgingly obliged. The _Oltremare _was in turn shredded by our own volley of turbolasers. The ship buckled. Whips of something electric, like lightning, jolted around the hull—it's shields going down. Still more struck the side of the thing, and it lurched like a wounded animal. It began churning sideways, lilting towards the binary stars.

Surely they would not be able to return fire after that. I had topped him.

But that conniving bastard…truly nothing was sacred to him. I should have known! He murdered Ingres in cold blood, he framed Kalkannis, he let me take the forefront of the revolution, and now he was stabbing me in the back!

But we had hit him hard—that ship was not coming back.

Even so, I was not permitted to enjoy this victory over yet another person I had trusted. We were then struck by another volley, but this time much smaller—almost insignificant.

"What is that?" I asked.

"It's…it's the Onderonians!" replied the panicking lieutenant.

And now the rift had completely emerged. "Evade them!" I ordered.

The picture grew clearer. The Onderonians had not responded well to the duel between the _Amphion _and the _Oltremare_. They were now breaking rank and attacking us. Absolute chaos ensued. Several Dolianian frigates disengaged and then tried to get the Onderonians off of us. The battle then split up into a three-way conflict. The other ships, the pirates, the assembly of other planets, did not know what to do.

The Dolianian fleet was now attacking the Onderonian almost exclusively. By sheer dumb luck, the Onderonian fleet was wedged in between the Doliani force and the Republic. As they were attacked by both sides, the Republic slowly began to tear them apart.

Everything began to go to pieces. The Onderonian fleet was rapidly deteriorating. The Republic was gaining the upper hand. Our third-rate allies were fleeing the scene. What was once a sure victory was disintegrating before my very eyes.

We tried to reroute and connect with the Dolianian fleet, perhaps form a last-ditch defense against the Republic.

But the fight was almost unintelligible at this point. The Republic was so bewildered at the developments that they seemed almost hesitant to act. But it became clearer. We were stuck, the Republic was forcing us into submission. We were undone.

And it was by treachery, once again! This eternal demon—why must it always torment me? Why must I always be undercut by the people I trust? What have I done to earn this sentence? Now betrayal and sedition had caused us to lose this decisive battle.

We had to retreat, I was about to order them. But, just briefly, a hologram appeared before me: on that little pedestal that always sits on the bridge of a ship. It was Theodoric.

I looked at him, but I cannot accurately describe the strangely serene and yet bitterly despondent face he was wearing. He was breathing slowly, almost calmly, as the figure shimmered to life before me.

His time was almost up—his ship's engines had been destroyed in our attack. The _Oltremare _was merely drifting to its doom with all of them inside of it—a dead coffin. There was no hope to eject in escape pods—they could either hurtle to death or hope to land on the dead planet, where they would starve. No, they had to ride out the ship until eventually that slow black hole swallowed them up.

"And so, Aeitus, my brother," I heard him say, "this is how it ends? With us raising our hands against each other?"

"You fired on us," I charged.

"What's done is done—intentional, not, it all means the same end in the grand scheme," he replied.

"What offer were you made?" I asked him heatedly, "what possessed you to do this thing?"

He almost laughed off my question. Instead he went another direction. "Fate," he began, "is a strange thing? Isn't it? You know what it is to be human? It's to rise up, to defeat nature, and take your fate into your own hands. To _decide _where you will die. Because we all will die. That is what makes man unique—we can decide when, and how."

"And you tried to betray me."

"We've betrayed ourselves," he said. "Perhaps we were always set on this path. Maybe, in the end, we had no say in the matter at all. It's almost like…like we're just…marionettes."

Static erupted before his voice came back in a whisper, "It seems…our revolution…doomed from the beginning. Isn't that…so, Aetius?"

It was so cryptic. I didn't understand at all what he was talking about. But it seemed finally that his mind had broken. Theodoric had so long played the role of the genius, the puppeteer, the man who had everything under control. But he had finally gambled away his role. He tried to deceive fate—to take matters into his own hands. To fulfill the vision, keep himself alive, and sacrifice me to "fate."

But he failed.

He just stared at me for a moment longer as the singularity began to play havoc with the transmission. The image cut, faded, stormed back briefly. They were going to die shortly.

One last breath of words came through. He said, "Goodbye, my brother. And always…long live Doliani."

The transmission literally died. They were crushed to death by an infinitely small point of density.

The battle had gotten even more out of hand. There was no system anymore. Everything was madness.

"Retreat," I ordered. "Go back to Doliani."

The silently obeyed. We relayed the information to the rest of our fleet—at least, what was left of it. We all turned and fled, jumping through hyperspace back to our planet. We expected the Republic would be hot on our pursuit.

But that day was over. And that is how we lost the Battle of Catalaunia. And that is the point from where, eventually, the revolution would eventually spiral into defeat. We went from invulnerable crusaders to cowardly backstabbers in just moments. Our entire initiative was turned on its head. There was nowhere to go but down.


	13. The Siege

_Author's Notes: Gettin' towards the end! Thanks once again to the readers and reviewers._

**The Siege **

From there, things went badly very quickly. We had gone, in mere moments, from a formidable force, ready to defeat the Republic for the second time in a major conflict, to a scattered and panicked political non-entity.

Weeks of chaos passed. Our allies quickly abandoned us. A rift exploded between Onderon and Doliani, and they may have even turned to attack us solely had not the Republic eviscerated their fleet. Quickly, from there, the Republic Navy followed them back to their home planet, allowing us time to escape. Our fragile political alliance collapsed. Without Onderon's military aid, dozens of planets thought us doomed and immediately offered to surrender to the Republic—even when they did not have any official representative to surrender to.

The most embarrassing incident was when Sullust surrendered to a Republic trading ship, begging them to let them back into the federation.

Obviously the catalyst for this disaster was the schism that developed between Onderon and us. And that was a direct result of that awful "vision" I had. If I had not seen such a thing, if I had never been told that one of us would die, then we would not have fired on each other. Onderon would not have turned on us. The Republic would have been dealt a second stinging defeat.

But I did get this vision. Why? I do not know. I am convinced that it shows only how the whole universe seems to have ordained itself against me. Even the Force, an insentient binding _nothing_, was determined to sabotage me. What chance did I have, when even the very essence of existence was opposed to me? No chance, and _that _is why I lost.

Not because of "shrewd" military strategy on the part of the Republic at Catalaunia, not because of Gamaliel's unrestrained smashing of Doliani that came afterwards. It came because of betrayal and self-destruction. Such was my fate.

But the Republic did not accomplish anything. They just stumbled stupidly into a situation that brilliantly set them up for victory. The fact that we, a patchwork collection of outcasts, had stymied them so effectively even up to that point is a testament to their ineptitude. If just one of the myriad of destructive variables in our revolution had _not _gone awry then the Republic would have lost. And they would have to endure that shame forever.

But it did not happen that way.

We fled back to Doliani in a hurry, but the Republic did not follow us. Not yet. I wanted to find Catiline and strangle him myself for allowing this to happen—for blatantly defying my orders and informing Theodoric of the vision. I was denied this opportunity, however, when I learned that he had been killed in an explosion during the _Oltremare_'s first volley on us. His fate was as ironic as it was deserved.

When we got to Doliani…things were not going well. The planet was at a crossroads. The Emperor was irritated. I remember the look of complete, stupid shock on his face when we learned what happened.

"Aetius Glendower!" he yelled at me, "you assured victory! Now what has happened?! The Onderonians have betrayed us?! Theodoric is _dead_! Where is there to go now?!"

There was nowhere to go. We spent a long time in this limbo, wondering what _would _happen.

I remember once Arnom brought us some of the worst news. We were in the Emperor's chamber. I turned to see the man reclining backwards in a chair around the Emperor's great table—the one over which we had planned this elaborate thing—with his hands on his forehead. He continued in a somber tone, "Onderon has fallen. We just got word. The Republic broke their blockade and stormed Iziz."

"So it's just us," stated Delacroix resolutely.

They did not understand why Onderon had turned on us. I dared not tell them of the vision, for then they would think me insane. The simple fact of the matter was that the _Oltremare _had "inexplicably" fired on us, and had we not returned fire, we would have been destroyed. The situation got out of hand from there. The Onderonians are notoriously hotheaded, and something had obviously set them off.

My colleagues had to just accept what I said, because those were the simple facts that everyone knew, and there was no way to talk to Onderon now at all. We were, indeed, alone.

Three weeks later Muunilinst was "liberated" by the Republic. The weapons we had looted from the planet and placed on Onderon were returned to their rightful place. The Republic quickly regained possession of their trade routes.

There was absolutely nothing we could do as we watched. We literally had _no _force with which to contest them anymore. The pirates were gone. The small bands of marauding conscripts were hiding. Onderon was occupied. And we had barely enough ships to set up a perimeter around Doliani. We just sat there for months, watching our whole country fall apart.

Eventually the Republic did show up. They tried to bully us into submission, tried to tell us that we were assuring our own destruction by resisting. Naturally no one took that very well. We knew that, as the central leading cause of the revolution, they would not be kind to us, even if we surrendered.

But even so, there was not much hope for us, and so many of our people were leaning towards surrender.

The Republic, however, was skeptical considering our history, and they brought out the heavy artillery, metaphorically speaking, to deal with us.

The Jedi Order, reconvened in its central hub on Coruscant, was called in. Grandmaster Gamaliel himself was given control over the fleet that blockaded us. Several knights were brought with him to serve as his instruments. They were sparing no expense to put us down.

That, in and of itself, should have made it clear that they were not interested in our surrender. We were, then, still unsure, but their attempts at "negotiations" removed all doubt.

Because the war was essentially over at this point, Doliani remained the only world still in opposition to the Republic. As such, we were no threat to them. They had reestablished their superiority and saved their economy from the brink of destruction. All the advantages were on their side—it was just a matter of when.

Before the hostilities, however, they decided to go through a charade.

I remember that day well, and I remember being told that the Jedi were sending several delegates to speak with me. They did not want to lose as many lives as it would take to subdue the planet, and they wanted to negotiate a surrender. Naturally it would have been unconditional, but they wanted to present and image of being very "accommodating" to us.

Arnom and Delacroix were in the main chamber when I was informed, and when they Jedi arrived, they were ordered to leave, as this was presumably an all-Jedi affair.

So they left me alone, and I awaited my adversaries.

Imagine my shock when the guards ushered in those four faces I had already known for so long.

Filing in calmly, casually—but very determined—were Gericault, Bosch, Quinn, and my old master Ianetta. They all strode up to me and formed a half moon around me. I didn't even bother asking them to sit down or do anything, I just looked at them in shock.

I was boiling with rage. Gamaliel had recruited those who I had thought were my friends to do this! He wanted to bring me to my knees in front of the only people I had ever related to! He wanted me to suffer defeat at the hands of those I was familiar with! He wanted to punish me!

How dare he?

But I was not even correct in that assessment. Gamaliel's motives were far more devious. I opened my mouth to speak, to address these people I had once respected, but I was given no time.

They went first. "Aetius," said Ianetta in that icy speech of hers, "how can you have fallen so far?"

"Fallen?" I thought, but I could not say because Gericault spoke instead.

He said, "Enough is enough. This has gone on too long."

The bruiser's hand then went to his waist. He was going for his lightsaber! I thought, "They aren't here to negotiate! They're here to kill me!"

How did they even get their weapons in here? I still do not know, but I assume they just worked their mind-tricks on the idiot guards and just waltzed in. We had fallen for the trap perfectly.

There was to be no talk of surrender, of conditional or unconditional ceasing of hostilities. No, they were sent to assassinate me so that Doliani would buckle under without protest! Well, I could _not _allow that. Deceit may have ruined my life, but I would not let it kill me. I would not die that way!

I exploded in rage. I suddenly had my own lightsaber in my hand and flew at them. The memory is all such a blur that I do not even clearly remember it.

There was yelling, but I hit Bosch first. The four of them spun around me and tried to situate themselves, but I was moving too fast. I did not even know I could fight like this. I was inspired by the rage, and driven on by a diabolical resolve to survive. I would _not _let Gamaliel have the last laugh like this. I attacked them with an intensity that clearly none of them had seen before. I dominated them like a professional soldier would a child armed with a stick.

I ran through the Twi'lek Bosch and kicked him aside, vaulting his body onto the table.

Master Ianetta locked blades with me and I ducked underneath an attack from Gericault. Quinn seemed to be hanging back, as he was not much of a duelist anyway. Gamaliel had probably sent him hoping that my friends' attacking me would have rendered my helpless, but he was wrong, it only inspired me further.

I twisted Ianetta's light blade around and sliced my own upwards, severing her arm from her body. She fell to one knee with a cry, and I spun and kicked the side of her head. She fell to the ground and did not get up.

Gericault cursed at me and launched a wild attack, but I parried it easily. He was then fighting with such haphazard indiscipline that I could essentially have picked the time to strike him down. His yellow weapon flung over my head, and then underneath my feet as I jumped over it. I didn't even have to swing. I was almost laughing at him it was so pitiful.

He grew angry and rushed at me. I dodged easily, though his beam singed the side of my beard. When he flew past me I casually shifted and struck out towards his back. My green weapon then blasted through his back and out the front. He was dead before he hit the ground.

I slowly stood up, nearly chuckling at their ineptitude, and turned round to face Quinn. The little weakling was backing away from me, towards great glass doors that led to the massive garden veranda.

I stormed towards him and he started pitifully pleading for his life. "Len!" he cried, "don't kill me!"

I continued on towards him, and he kept backing up until he ran into the great doors. He nervously shoved them open and kept going backwards, trying to buy time.

"I'm sorry!" he said, though I knew full well that it was insincere. "Just…don't, Len! Don't!"

He could beg, but that wouldn't save him. He had come to kill me, and no amount of nostalgia for better times was going to save him from getting what he deserved. I rushed at him. He tried weakly to resist. I easily flung around his lightsaber and jettisoned it out of his hands. He cried out loudly, so I think I might have even sliced off his thumb or something while doing so. But I was too preoccupied to notice where his blood was coming from.

I took a step backwards and bit my lower lip, anticipating what I would do. He opened his mouth to beg, but I did not allow him to finish. I threw my hand at him, throwing a wave of energy at him with such power that I did not even understand how I did it. The wave blasted around him and vaulted him backwards at such speed that he slammed straight through the elegantly carved concrete railings that guarded the veranda. Shards of them, dust, giant pieces of tile all vaulted through the air in a cloud as he flew backwards, his limbs twitching and writhing as he was suspended in nothingness. He then disappeared over the edge.

I took a step forward and looked over to see him fall. By the time I had done so, he had already hit the ground. Already people were flocking to see what had happened. He had smashed straight into the middle of the great courtyard where so much had death had already taken place. First Elyana, then Kalkannis, and now Quinn. All of them perished in that square. You could say that I died there too, as any that part of me that loved life died with Elyana.

I turned off my lightsaber and then heard an exclamation from behind.

"What the hell happened?!" shrieked Delacroix.

I turned around and went back in. Delacroix and Arnom were both standing still, their faces betraying feelings of sheer horror. There were several guards with them, but I could not see their faces behind their masks.

Both the senators were staring at the three dead bodies in the room. Bosch was on the table, his arm loosely hung over a charred hole in his chest. Ianetta was just below him, slumped against the table leg, one of her arms five feet away from her body. Gericault was face down on the ground ten yards the other way.

Once they processed the scene, they looked at me. I had never seen such looks from either of them before. Delacroix had only ever maintained one emotion in front of me: stern, distant hostility. But now that was gone. In its place was a pale white caricature of what he normally looked like. His mouth was hanging open and his dark eyes darted back and forth, as though he simply could not register what had happened. Arnom was just stuttering. I could swear he was about to cry.

"What…what have you done?" asked Delacroix meekly.

"What have _I _done?!" I asked. "They attacked _me_!"

Arnom just took a step forward, still looking at the dead Twi'lek on the table.

"We're…" began Delacroix. "We…are finished."

There was stunned silence as Arnom wandered about aimlessly, unsure what he wanted to do.

Delacroix took a deep breath, closed his mouth, and then looked at me seriously. "Excuse me," he said, "there is something I must do." He then bowed slightly, dropped his arms to his side, and then marched off as though he were in the military.

I looked to Arnom to see a man that was just totally broken. He kept muttering, "I don't know…I don't know what to do." He walked in circles muttering that for almost ten minutes before I gave up and left him.

I despise that man for the way he acted then. The Republic had tried to assassinate me and he just started twiddling his thumbs and muttering. He was such a quintessential politician. He was all bluster and talk, but once it came down to it he was spineless worm. He acted so high and mighty, but without Theodoric he was weak. He could not handle the pressure of the situation and his mind abandoned him. What a worthless man.

Delacroix, at least, decided to determine his own fate.

I left Arnom in the throne room and started down the hall. Just as I rounded the corner I heard a faint gunshot. It was Delacroix, I knew for certain. There was only one gunshot. One of his clerks found his body only seconds later.

Arnom disappeared after that. I never learned where he went to hide, but I am certain he died in the bombing.

There was no one left after that aside from the Emperor and myself. Everyone had been killed or disappeared. Everyone that I had ever known in my life was dead then. Except Gamaliel—the one man who I wanted to die most of all was the one man who lived. And soon he would defeat me, this I knew.

Because the Emperor was such a malleable tool, I easily manipulated him. I believe he wanted to surrender at that time, but it was not as if there was an opportunity. The only "attempt" at surrender resulted in my assassination attempt. There was no going back. They didn't even give us a choice.

I remember telling him, as he sat on that great fat throne, "You don't want to be remembered as the emperor who hid from the Republic, do you? The last emperor of Doliani should not be a coward."

Somehow this stirred a kind of pride within him and he agreed with me. He decided that he, and his whole planet, would go down fighting. They would not sell out their dignity like the other planets had. Doliani would not give the Republic that satisfaction.

The emperor, too, died in the bombing.

It was only two days after the fateful massacre that the attack took place. The only reason I even lived at all was because I happened to be deep in the underbelly of the palace when it began.

Everyone stood on edge as we awaited the Republic's attack. I took to wandering the streets in those last two days, looking at the people, seeing their resolute but wearily resigned expressions. It was as if the whole system had broken down. Politicians, military men, civilians, men, women, aliens, everyone was just floating through life. Everyone was simply awaiting the inevitable. People tried to live normally while the Republic put the final touches on their siege and prepared to attack. It was like watching a bad play—with no feeling or emotion in the actors.

The Republic eventually obliged.

I don't know how involved Gamaliel was in this plan, but I'm assuming he was integral. Regardless, the Republic initiated a massive bombing of Doliani. Much in the same way we had intended to glass Commenor, the Republic glassed us.

I was underneath the palace at the time. I remember, as I was walking, suddenly feeling a strange sense of calm. I stopped what I was doing, looked at the ceiling and just stood there. There was silence, and before I could even blink, the whole world shattered.

I was off of the ground. I do not even know where I was. I flew into a void—disappeared into oblivion. It was like being sucked into a tornado, or, at least, I imagine that's what it was like. The entire palace was uprooted off of the ground and obliterated. Pieces of it hurled everywhere as I went careening into the dark chasm of ash, fire, and smoke.

Thoyahna was utterly obliterated. Much of the surrounding forest was scorched. Everything died.

If you are unfamiliar with Doliani, or if you've never really heard much about it, this would be why. It doesn't exist anymore. It perished under fire and brimstone—a judgment from the Republic.

I am not even conscious of what happened after the explosion. I do not know how I lived. I suddenly became aware, like waking from sleep, on the ground at some place I do not know. I don't know how much time had passed, but all I could see around me was a desolate landscape, completely devoid of any kind of life. Plants, animals, people; nothing there lived.

I tried to get to my feet but I was too weak. My skin burned with pain. Every breath I drew inflamed some kind of horrid burning within my chest. I coughed up blood and fell to my hands and knees, unable to do anything.

I crawled several feet from where I was, groggily trying to survey my surroundings. My hazy vision was slowly becoming clearer. It was obvious I was in part of what had once been Thoyahna. There was a broken pillar in front of me, and I was lying upon some kind of scorched tile. There was glass all over the place.

As I tried to move, I ran my hand over some kind of object, and tried to look down and see it. I recoiled in horror and almost retched when I saw that it had once been person. It was a mangled, blackened skeleton. The only discernible part of it that remained was the head, where there was still some burnt flesh. The eyes had somehow exploded; leaving streams of this substance that had been liquefied by the explosion. Never a more disgusting, disturbing image have I seen.

I fell backwards onto my back, heaving and coughing like mad, and lay there to die. But for some reason I didn't. I must have lain there for hours, trying to will my life away, but too weak to do anything about it. Eventually they came to me.

Towering dark figures emerged from the flames around me. The stood over me, clad in protective suits and frightening masks, and tried to see if I was still alive. That's when I heard the voice—that syncopated, atonal voice that I knew so well…and hated so much.

It was Gamaliel.

Suddenly I was given strength. I do not know how—from the Force I suppose. I had enough energy to get to my knees, hoping to fight. My sudden action startled the non-Jedi, I am sure. But I had to try one more time to resist these wicked men. In truth I hoped that if I acted violently enough they would kill me quickly. It was with these thoughts that I rose against them.

"Hey!" one of them yelled, drawing a blaster on me.

I smashed the bottom of his elbow and wrung the blaster from his hand. I somehow squeezed off a shot and hit him in the chest. I turned, still on my knees, to Gamaliel and yelled something at him. I was almost mad, like some kind of feral beast. I lunged towards him, flying off of the ground, and pulled the trigger.

He did not move. He merely deflected the shot with some kind of Force field. I crashed down at his feet and tried to roll in order to get up. He then snapped to life and grabbed my arm. He almost twisted it backwards as he vaulted me over and then thrust me onto the ground. The blaster flew from my hand as he plunged me into the dirt.

I was dizzy, but I remember seeing him kneel towards me, his hands going for my shoulders.

"We meet again, Glendower," he said, his voice sounding metallic through the mask. Then something collided with my head and I went unconscious.

I came to somewhere far away, on a ship. By then I was a prisoner, and I was en route to Coruscant, where I would await only trial and death.


	14. Essential Statement

_Author's Notes: Well, here is Aetius's short conclusion. Many thanks to those of you who read this story, and more to those who reviewed it. A million thanks to Gipper 40 for contributing so much to it._

**Essential Statement**

And now I come full circle, back to where I began. I was brought to Coruscant but for one purpose: to be "tried" and then executed.

There was a massive uproar when I was brought back. Crowds filled the streets; angry protestors waved signs. They proclaimed my swift and harsh judgment for bringing war upon them. This is what they believed.

As I was taken off the ship—I could hardly walk so I had to be transported via some kind of floating, sick man's contraption—I was barraged by reporters and other media hounds. My "escort", though it detested me, fought hard to get the people out of the way.

I was taken first to a hospital in order to treat this radiation sickness that I contracted during the glassing of Doliani. Once there, they decided that although the disease was untreatable, I would not die, at least not yet. They then transported me to a maximum-security prison only a few minutes ride away from the Jedi Temple. I sulked there in this morose stupor for some time, not knowing what to do, awaiting only my judgment.

Oronis, my guard, was the only person who tried to talk to me as someone other than a monster. I think it is because of his simple, naïve curiosity.

At first I didn't want to talk to him, to speak to anyone. I just wanted to rot away in there, bide the time until my own death. But he was persistent, he asked me sensible questions, and eventually he learned about some of my past.

I could tell he began to feel sorry for me once I told him about Elyana.

I related the whole story to him, and he encouraged me to keep going. I could see that he took pity on me, on my tragic situation, on the fact that I had to endure the death of someone I loved so much. He encouraged me to write it down.

Even so, I do not think I would have until the preliminary hearings of the trial. I was set up as the defendant, of course, with the Republic accusing me of the most lofty and inhumane crimes associated with anyone since Darth Malak. But what angered me the most were the drastic and insidious misrepresentations of my character. The questions they'd ask, that the media threw at me, they were so wrong! So malevolent! So…hateful!

"Is it not true," they'd ask, "that you referred to yourself as Darth Ransom in your time on Doliani? Did you not study ancient Sith holocrons in an effort to learn so-called 'dark side magic'?"

"Is it not true that you murdered your mentor, one Andury Kalkannis? As well as your friends and former master?"

"Is it not true that you seduced a young woman named Elyana Kerensa, hoping to draw her to your deviant way of thinking?" And then, "Did you not engage in sexual intercourse, a violation of your Jedi creed, with this woman?"

It was this that riled up such indignation within me. It was so false, so wrong, such a glorious bastardization of the facts that I could not just sit idly by and allow it. They could defame me all they wanted, but how dare they say such things about Elyana? She did not deserve to have her character dragged through the mud like this. She was not responsible for anything, and that they would treat her as some kind of object, some stone that I used to hurdle into power…it was too much.

It was not unlike relating the story of a lame man…but in the retelling he could walk. Or spreading lies about some unknown soldier confessing his country's secrets…when in reality he never said a word even under hours of torture. It was malfeasance of the highest degree. They knew nothing of the truth, and they knew nothing of what drove me.

How could they think I murdered Kalkannis? Was it not merely in self-defense for what he had continually done to me? And wasn't it deserved, considering everything he had done?

How could they think that I _seduced _Elyana? That I just used her as a tool in some kind of power play? I _loved _her…but they would not even grant me that.

And how could they possibly think that I referred to myself as a Sith? That I embraced the dark side? I clearly have not. I found no holocrons, studied no Sith technique. I don't even know what a Sith is, aside from the fact that I am not one.

This misrepresentation is why I decided to write this book. Oronis supplied me with a pen and plenty of paper. I wrote as much as I could in the little time I have left. I tried to overcome my ailment. I'll hope you'll forgive the misspellings and the blood from my coughing. I'll hope you'll forgive my rants and my righteous fury. Look past these bloated things at the core of my tale.

And now, my noble reader, it is your turn. You have journeyed with me into hell, and now you see who I am—what I represent.

It is your turn. Your role is to judge me. Am I so guilty? Or is it the fault of all those manipulative hypocrites and unmitigated idiots that this has happened?

Look at what the Order has done to me. They were not content to steal away my life, to take me from my family and force me to be a slave. No, they had to do more. They had to deny me the opportunity to even love someone. I was given but one person to ever relate to, to ever long for, to ever love, but their wise "rules" decreed that this was a sin. And because of this…she was taken from me. She was murdered by one of their sycophantic servants, who had not the capacity to even understand what he was doing.

Was it so wrong to decide that I wanted nothing to do with them anymore? To flee to a new country and help it to fight to survive? To help it overcome the abusive system of the Republic?

Am I a villain because I wanted my life for myself? I merely used an opportunity I was given to break free from them. The Republic didn't have to fight us, that was _their _choice. _I _didn't kill millions of people, _they _did.

But the Republic was not even content with this. They had to also spread all these lies about me. They had to call me a Sith. They had to accuse me of using Elyana for nothing more than sex and power. They accused me of murdering the people who had tried to betray me. I have been subjected to so much slander, and still they are unsatisfied.

So I wrote this book. It is my charge against the Jedi Order. And against the Republic that shelters them.

It is your role to judge its merits.

I have demanded answers for their actions, justification for my mistreatment at their hands. I know I will not get it, but you will outlive me, and perhaps you will see. But I doubt I will get any sort of reprieve to this torment.

The only thing I ask of you is this: do not ever hold Elyana responsible for what has happened. It is simply untrue. I would give every minute of my life back just to relive that one day we spent together at the retreat on Doliani. I wanted nothing more than to just flee from everything and live with her. I wanted nothing more than just her. It wasn't love that "drove" me to fighting the Republic and the Jedi. Even in light of the horrid treatment of the Outer Rim at the hands of the Republic, I would have not gotten involved if I could have just had her back. It may be selfish, but it is true.

But that was not to be. It was as if fate was mocking me, twisting up my life, taking away the one person I held dear. I would be denied even Elyana, even the woman that I loved. I was to have nothing. And so _that _is why I fought. Not because of love, but because they took my love away.

Always remember that.

They will soon execute me. The main trial begins tomorrow, and I will most assuredly be found guilty. I will be sentenced to execution as a political prisoner guilty of high treason. My life is forfeit. My book is a charge to them, let us see if they have an answer.

But when they kill me, won't the answer be obvious? That they will kill me simply to silence me? Simply to "prove" that "might makes right"? Well, then you will have it. They will say nothing and simply strike me down.

Is this because they have no answer?

—**Aetius Glendower, year 21481 (**_**3519 BBY**_**)**

_The historian reached the end of the page. There was nothing left on it but several noticeable creases and a few stained drops of blood. Behind it was an empty flyleaf._


	15. Through a Glass Darkly

_Author's Notes: Uh…__**SURPRISE!**_

_---_

_The historian flipped through about five blank pages before stumbling across another parchment. It was written on the same paper…but it was different. Something about it struck him rather oddly. What was this? An addendum? Could there be…more?_

**Through A Glass Darkly**

It has not been long since I finished my book; since I told you, my noble and benevolent reader, of the sad, tragic story of my life. But the time has come to unroll the parchment again. Not much time has passed, but I know so much more about the man who wrote that wretched story than I had ever thought possible. And I know now that I am not the same man as he was.

To leave my story the way it was would be to die perjured. Things have happened, in the last several days, which have rendered almost all of it…well…

I tried to destroy the book. Forgive the creases and wrinkles in it; I had crumpled it up with the intent to destroy it. Oronis stopped me. That kind man, he prevented me from destroying it and gave me valuable advice.

So I decided not to commit it to flame, but I am short on time. If I could not burn up this awful slander and start over, then I would have to settle with adding to it, for I cannot mend it. Unfortunately, there is too much to mend.

I have a confession to make, my reader. I hope you will forgive me. I pray that you will not judge me so harshly for what I have done. Don't discard my writings as worthless because of what I am about to tell you.

I have lied to you.

Not once, not twice, not even ten times. I cannot even count the innumerable fallacies that have crept malevolently into my story. There is so much that is _wrong _about my tale that it grieves me. I cannot even flip open these pages and look back on it; it is too painful.

The most insidious thing is that I did not even know that I was lying. I had deceived myself into believing these falsehoods—repeating these events over and over again in my mind as I wrote, conditioning myself to remember them not as they were, but as I _wanted _them to be. Are they lies if you sincerely believe them? An ethical question beyond the scope of my book, I suppose. But regardless of the nature of lying, this book contains untruths.

This I tell you: let no one undertake such a project lightly. If you are not prepared to face the demons of your past, then it is better to leave such things buried, never to be heard from again. I tried, in my stupidity, to wrestle with my past, and I found that I could not defeat it. This tale of my life has awakened within me that one shred of dignity and self-respect that still remained, and it is now warring with my depraved, twisted self. I hope to get this out and let the light win.

What is the catalyst for this crisis, you wonder?

I must confess that even I cannot adequately explain it. It was a number of things, all of them culminating in this monumental shift. The first thing was even beginning the process of writing this book. I found out, ever so slowly, that the past I had written down was not the past I had been remembering. My memories had grown twisted, inflated. They turned backwards. They tricked me. But I allowed myself to be tricked. I indulged in it.

But enough, there will be time for apologies later. Let me continue:

The first thing that really affected me, at least in a way that I can consciously recollect, was a vision I had, the night before the trial. The onset of the thing was similar to the one that I had experienced at Catalaunia, but it was different. Instead of a premonition…it was living. I was dealing with something _current_.

In the vision, I spoke with her. Elyana, my lost love, came to me as some kind of specter. I confess I did not even know that this was possible. But I know that I was really speaking to her. She wasn't just some lost phantom, a trick of the mind. It was her spirit. I was speaking with the very same woman whom I had loved…what felt like a lifetime ago.

I was in that strange, misty gray world. Suspended in the fog, but this did not, for some reason, concern me. I was just fixated on her as she came before me.

"Lenny," she began slowly. It was as if all that time since she died had vanished. Just hearing her voice…it was enough to vault me back into that one happy time of my life. She said, "Lenny…why have you done this?"

I had no words. What did she mean? But I deep down, I knew: she meant everything. What had I done? I had done exactly what she had asked me not to do. The memories were coming back.

The part of my book…that part the dealt with her death…it was not correct. She spoke to me. I wrote that she had no dying words, no final revelation, no great advice for me. But that is untrue. She did. As I held on to her dying body in that square on Doliani…she did tell me something.

I was holding her, whispering pleas of forgiveness into her ears, and she said to me, just as life expired: "Lenny…don't ruin your life…for me…"

I can see it so clearly now! How is it that I could not have recalled? Why did I not remember this? I truly have no answer. I seem to have forgotten it on purpose, as though I needed to remove that memory in order to justify all the things that I did afterwards. I did ruin my life. I defied the dying wish of the woman that I had loved so dearly. I could not live with myself for doing that…so I forgot it.

But that was not even the worst thing of which I was guilty. I…I do not now…if I can write it.

…

"I'm so sorry, Yana," I said to her in this vision. "So much went wrong…so much that I didn't mean to go wrong…"

"I know, Lenny," she said, "and I forgive you. I'll always forgive you, I always have and always will. I know you. _You _are a _good _man…I forgave you once. I can again…but don't let this be your legacy…"

What did she forgive me for? I…have to tell you. I know I must have totally destroyed the small amount of trust you would have built up for me throughout the length of my tale. I have to earn it back. I have to regain your trust. I need your faith. And to do it…I will tell the truth. The painful…uncompromising…hard…truth.

Kalkannis didn't kill Elyana. He didn't.

It was…

_Me._

It was an accident! Purely an accident! I would never raise my hand against her…I loved her so much. If you can…remember that scene…I wrote that Kalkannis reflected a blaster bolt into her. He…did no such thing. It was I that reflected the shot.

It was I that struck down my beloved Yana…

It broke me. I felt so much fear and anguish. The guilt drove me mad! Could you not see this? The last several parts of my story…they're insane! I was overcome by it. My mind broke when she died, and only now am I beginning to crawl out of the dark chasm that I threw myself into.

I did not mean to do it. Kalkannis had worn his Jedi robes and the man on the top of the parliament building shot at him. But his bolt went towards me. I quickly repelled it…and it bounced straight into her…right into her side.

I did not know what to do. I cried like a child. I tried to cradle her in my arms. I tried to will her to life. I pleaded with her. "Please…forgive me, Yana…forgive…me…"

And she _did_.

She was such a pure and wonderful woman…so righteous and beautiful—in soul even more than in body. She forgave the man who had killed her. She looked into my reddened eyes as life expired and she _forgave _me. "I…forgive you…" she had croaked…"just don't…Lenny…don't ruin your life for me…"

She had given me her faith…and I went and threw it away. I was so undeserving of her love. The darkness that had crept up in me—the darkness that started just with an idle thought, a subtle dislike for how unintelligent Kalkannis was—manifested itself fully. I could not live in a world where I had killed Elyana. I just could not. My mind broke. I blamed Kalkannis. I struck him down in a fury. I had to have a scapegoat. I could not…endure…

Now that you see the truth…do you see what I have become?

I _am _a monster. Surely you could tell far earlier than I could. It must be obvious based on my actions, even though I colored them with such bloated fallacies in order to gain your sympathy. I had _fallen _so _far_.

"You know what you have to do…" Yana said to me.

I then awoke from that mysterious vision. It had jerked me out of my despair.

Despair…what a devious thing.

I wallowed in it. I almost enjoyed it. I indulged in that sickeningly sweet pleasure that is being wronged. I savored the injustices that were committed against me. I wanted to be wronged so that I could be right. I wanted the universe to be against me so that I could prove how unworthy it was of me. I wanted to prove how much better I was than everyone else. And I even dragged you down with me.

What else is not true? There are too many things to name. I am sure you can figure them out. But let me move on with the tale.

I awoke with all of these doubts assailing me from every direction. My mind was beginning to fracture. The past that I had so meticulously built up around me was starting to fall apart. I was so confused, bewildered, I did not know what to think. I tried confronting my demons, but I could not. I was almost incoherent as they dragged me off to the trial.

The prosecution had already mounted a massive case towards my deserving of the death penalty. The list of crimes against the Republic was tremendous. There was no doubt I would be sentenced to death.

That was when they called in the Jedi to testify. Though the recent conversation with Elyana had affected me, I still anticipated a drubbing at their hands. But that was not what happened. Gamaliel himself was called to the witness stand, and what he had to say thoroughly shocked me. He did not denounce me. He did not ridicule or accuse me.

He simply got up there…and took the blame. He took all of it, set it squarely upon his shoulders.

"Glendower," he said, "is my greatest failure. I functioned as an enabler for him. He is a product of the Jedi Order, and we did not do enough to prevent this."

"You are not saying, wise master," asked one of the prosecutors, "that he should be absolved of these crimes, are you?"

"I said no such thing. I am merely stating that Aetius Glendower is the responsibility of the Jedi Order. He was under our supervision, and we were ignorant of the signs. We did not foresee his anger towards the Order, or his disapproval of our treatment of him."

"And you think this justifies his actions?"

"It does not. But it means that we are responsible. Any time one of our own breaks and does something such as this…it is ultimately we who are culpable. You see, before you, the man who is responsible for Aetius Glendower. It is my fault and mine alone."

It shocked me. I had spent so much time blaming the Order for what had happened to me…I never stopped to consider how they'd react. It completely surprised me when they accepted the blame. They did not defend against my charge…they accepted it.

The court was rather stunned as well. He had tried to assume all the responsibility—the guilt associated with me—and take it up for himself. It was like he was pardoning me, and all my horrific actions…it was like he understood me. He knew me better than I knew myself. He knew why I had done these things. And then that made me wonder…did I know why I had done these things?

I realized…I did not. I tried to think about it…and the only thing I could come up with was that I rebelled from the Republic as some kind of twisted and self-destructive way to get back at the Jedi Order for their perceived wrongs.

What about representation, you wonder?

All will be explained.

That revelation alone caused me to doubt almost everything I knew about myself.

As I was returned to my cell that night, I tried to think, but my brain was muddled. I could not grasp what was happening, so I tried to sleep.

I then had another dream.

This time it was not a vision, but a real dream. In it, I was suddenly standing before the High Council of the Jedi Order. I was presenting my argument against them. I was there to tell them about how wicked they were, about how awful their practice of stealing children was, about how I never wanted to join the Order. How they ruined my whole life by making me.

I was standing on a pedestal, and my book was before me. I was reading from it, telling them my tale, just as you have read it. They were all seated around me in a half-circle, just as you would expect, and they all glared at me intently. Gamaliel himself was straight in front of me, and he did nothing the whole time except peer at me with a sort of stern intensity that began to make me nervous.

But I read my tale, my charge against them. I reveled in the accusations. I enjoyed every jab at the Order, every insult I could hurl at them. But as I spoke…I began slowly to realize that I was speaking not in a language…but in gibberish!

I was babbling! I tried to form the words in my mind, but they could not come out properly. Everything I said began to indicate the opposite of what I meant it to say. And still they just gazed at me sternly as everything that I was trying to do was being undone!

I couldn't speak what I wanted to say at all. I looked down to see that my writings on my paper were shifting. It was like they were morphing into other things…melting into drivel and then spilling off of the page. I tried to pick up the paper, but the words all just started falling off. It was a nightmare. Everything was going to pieces. My whole plan was for naught.

And even as I tried to scrounge everything together, to hurl my accusations at the Jedi…they still just sat there in stoic silence, watching me writhe in the spotlight. I could not bring my charge to them without humiliation. They saw straight through my story. They saw my accusations for what they were.

I awoke in terror. The next day I was sentenced. I cannot even remember it. All I know is that I was found guilty of high treason, conspiracy to undermine the government, five counts of murder, and sedition. It was to be expected. I am condemned to die by firing squad within one week. This was not surprising. I had thought I was hardened to the idea of my death, but this new revelation was frightening me.

I had not much time left to live. But suddenly my outlook on life was changing. I have only a week to live with this perspective.

I fell into a deep depression. I couldn't look at my book. I couldn't think straight. Suddenly everything I had held true was beginning to come apart at the seams.

I told Oronis of my quandary. I told him that I was confused. I told him about the lies in my book…and for some reason he was not shocked. He had expected it.

An hour later I chanced another look at it. It appalled me. How could I have willingly written such blatantly false things? I am guilty of so much…and now you must heap historical malfeasance on top of it. I reread one section of the story, and I determined that no one should ever set eyes upon it. I took it up to destroy it. I crinkled it in my hands and tried to reach the incinerator. I had to erase these violations of morality. I had to get rid of these damning documents.

But Oronis stopped me. "Don't destroy it!" he cried, "fix it! Fix it!"

Could I? I had not much time. I have to undo the lies I have written. And now you must bear with me as I correct the things I set wrong. Slowly, more of the past—the real past—came back to me. I gained a new perspective on myself.

But despite these new feelings, I still did not know where to begin.

That was when Gamaliel came to me. He came even to my cell. Oronis opened up the doors and he came in, sat down across from me in the very chair that I had spent so long slaving away at these thousands upon thousands of lies. I lay on the bed, growing sicker with each passing day, falling further into melancholy and depression. He looked at me with that same stern expression.

"I have sensed great turmoil within you, Aetius," he said. With these simple words he articulated everything that was wrong. The time was now.

"I do not know…what I believe anymore," I replied in between coughs.

"Then you have taken a step in the right direction."

I told him I didn't understand.

"Before," he said, "you were certain of these falsities—these lies that you have perpetuated. You believed them whole-heartedly. Now that you are confused, that you are thinking, you stand at a crossroads. It's up to you which path to take."

"Are you here to redeem me?" I asked.

"I cannot redeem you," he said brusquely. "I can forgive you of the slights you have made against me. But I cannot forgive you for what you've done to others. I cannot absolve you of the murders you have committed. That is not my role."

"How do you know…so much…?"

He gave a knowing smile. It wasn't warm, it was almost accusatory, but it was somehow comforting to me. He said "I know everything about you, Aetius. I knew you even when you were as a child. You do not remember, but it was _I _that brought you here from Cstephon. It was I who spoke to your parents about your abilities, about your talent. I always have sensed tremendous potential within you. It grieves me to see that you have fallen so far."

I broke down. I said, "I don't know…anymore. I am…so depraved…" I hid my face from him.

"You are," he said, "but your realization of this is what will save you. Do you know, Aetius, why you have done the things you have done?"

It was time for me to recite the lines. Now I was able to lift my charge against the Jedi, and now I didn't even know if I believed it any longer. "The Order…is wicked. They took away my family. They took Elyana away from me."

"You know as well as I that you do not really believe that. Your family died in an accident. And Elyana was taken away by fate—or perhaps chance—not by us."

I was silent.

"Do you see, now, why we forbade love in the first place? You affection for her allowed you to be misled. You were confused, you could not think clearly. You blamed people who had no fault. You murdered a man in cold blood."

But I had something to say to this. "Yes…" I began, but then restarted with a shout: "No! The ban on love is wrong! I did kill Kalkannis after her death…but it was not because of love!"

"Of course not—but your love for her was turned into hatred for him. You are a passionate man, Aetius, and your love for her was obsessive. Yours was a…sick love. It was sincere, but it was a terrible, frightening love that more closely resembled hate than any other emotion. If you couldn't have her, you may well have ended up killing her on purpose."

"That is not true!" I cried, "If we had only been allowed to love each other…then certainly none of this would have happened. That is the great injustice…"

I saw surprising hesitation in his eyes. He halted and then began in his formal manner of speech: "So you still do not consent there—not that I expected you to. I will…however…think about what you have said." He knew the questions, of course, and the answers, but I knew that he was sincere. I then understood that he had given tremendous thought to the love question. He thought about it. He was not so ignorant of what I felt. He _knew_.

I grunted, but then began coughing horribly again.

"And what of the Republic?" he asked, forcing me to go deeper.

"The system is broken…" I said, "the people of the Outer Rim were being abused."

"You do not sincerely believe that. And we both know it."

What? That was the whole point of my book! How could he say such a thing?

"You never cared for the rebellion, Aetius. You used it for your own ends. You were so consumed in your hatred, in your desire to punish the Jedi Order for supposedly 'taking' from you, that you were willing to use anything to get revenge. You allowed yourself to be manipulated by Theodoric just so you would have the opportunity."

He…was right. I must again tell the truth. I never cared for the representative plight of the outer worlds. I tried to force myself to care. I tried to force myself to be on their side, though, and I think I even convinced myself that I was. I was so hyperbolic…so vehement…that should have betrayed my true insecurity. I fought for something I didn't believe in, and I tried to convince myself that I did even as I tried to convince you. But that was never my goal. My goal was just to make the Jedi hurt.

"And then," he continued, "when you were done with Theodoric…you killed him."

"He fired at me first!" I protested.

"He did no such thing. Theodoric was a politician—he had no control over the _Oltremare_. Their attack on your ship was nothing more than an accident. But in your hysteria you returned fire and caused a rift to break out between Doliani and Onderon."

Cold water on my spine. "You…know this?"

"I was _there_. I _saw _it. I don't even need the reports, and there are many of those as well. You know it, too. You knew it even as you murdered the captain of your ship when he dared to defy you."

I said nothing.

"Do you not see a pattern here, Aetius?" He gently sat down next to me.

"What pattern?" I asked bitterly.

He put his hand on my shoulder. "Surely you do. You manipulated people. You murdered those who stood in your way. You undid yourself in a whirlwind of betrayal. You began to despise weakness. You existed to make the Jedi suffer. Do you not see? Aetius, you are a Sith."

"I am no such thing. I never fell to the dark side. I never became a Sith."

"You flatter yourself. This is not literal, it is worse. You are everything that constitutes a Sith. Can't you see it?"

I thought for a moment. Suddenly a frightful chill fell over me. I almost went into a fit. I began to shiver and then started coughing horribly—my worst spasm yet. I thought on what he said…I thought…

"You…are right…" I whispered.

"That is the power of the dark side," he said, "its strength lies in its deceit. You fell to the dark side…and you did not even know. So complete was its hold over you that it even convinced you that it did not exist. You fell wholly into its net. It consumed you as though it were a beast."

"I am…I have fallen…"

He just looked at me.

"What…can I do?"

"There is nothing you can do now to undo what has been done. You can only try to redeem the present."

I fell forwards, burying my face in his shoulder. "I…have fallen so far…I am so wicked and depraved. Please…forgive me…"

"I have already forgiven you for what you have done to me. What else have you done?"

"I murdered Kalkannis…even though he did not kill Elyana. He never did anything to me. I betrayed Theodoric because I was afraid to die…I killed my friends and my old master because I was angry that you sent them to me…"

"You remember now that they did not attack you first?"

"I do…I do…" I croaked.

"You have always thought of yourself before others, Aetius. No matter the situation. You only ever considered how loving Elyana would affect you, not her. You only considered your perspective concerning Theodoric's 'betrayal', not his. And you only thought that the Jedi were there to kill you, not to end the war. You inflate your importance. They were there to negotiate, to save the lives of millions, but you made it about yourself—you made it necessary to kill them because of your twisted self-obsession,"

He was…correct. You must have noticed as you read this book. Every situation…I always put myself above everyone else. I always promoted my own superiority. I never…considered how my actions would affect others…

"But why…" I asked… "why did you destroy Doliani?"

"I had no say in the matter," he confessed to me sadly. His head hung down and he looked at the ground. "I would never condone the destruction of that planet. The Republic military was so incensed that you murdered the negotiators…they decided to glass the planet."

And so, again, it was revealed that it was my fault that the planet had been destroyed. Had I not killed Quinn, Bosch, Ianetta, or Gericault…then perhaps the planet would have been saved.

"The deaths…of millions are on my hands…"

He looked back at me, his murky brown eyes glaring intently. "What do you want to do?"

"I want…I want to take it all back. I want to prevent all these deaths from happening…I never wanted anything more than just to live my life in peace and isolation. To just be away from everything and live with Elyana."

"But you cannot do that," he said.

"I know," I wheezed. "I wish I could take back all those that I killed. I wish I could give them life again. But I can't…"

He gave me the same look. He could see that I was talking in circles.

"What can I do?" I asked.

"You can ask to be forgiven."

"But haven't I done that?"

"You have only asked me," he said, "not the rest. They may be dead, but that does not mean you cannot express contrition."

"It is true," I said as I hung my head. Tears fell from my eyes, flowing onto the ground. "I want to be free of the dark side. I want to get away from it. I want to be forgiven for all these horrible things I have done. I beg…forgiveness. I am contrite…I am…so…deeply…sorry for what has happened. I never meant for any of it! I never meant to kill anyone!"

I was almost hysterical. Gamaliel just gently put his hand on my head as I shook with the each spasmodic episode of tears. He just humored me, allowing me to sob like a child.

"Is it possible," I asked, "to be forgiven?"

"I do not know," he said. "You must put your trust in the light side. You have fallen farther than any man I have ever known. The things you have done…I dare not even repeat them. But if you are sincere… then you must sincerely hope that it saves you. You must sincerely want it. You must be a knight of faith."

"If only…if only we had more than a code," I whispered.

"I do not understand."

"If we…" I began, "if the light side was more than just a code! If it was more than rules, then I could ask _it _to forgive me. But I can't…it's just a list. I can only hope that I am somehow redeemed. Why must our beliefs be a code? A law?"

"What else would it be?" he asked.

"It would…it would be a person!" I said with a marked degree of hopeful insanity. "A person could do these things…a code just makes it worse!"

Gamaliel was silent for a long time. He just sat there, taking in what I had said.

"A person…" I muttered.

"I think," Gamaliel said at last, "that this will save you. That is what I have come here for."

"You…you did come to redeem me?"

"Yes."

"In spite of everything I've done?"

"In spite of all of it. No one is beyond redemption. Not even you."

He stood up. I tried to get up too, but I struggled. I coughed mightily, the blood flying from my mouth. My yellow face was turning blue as I labored even to breath. He tried to help me up, got me onto my feet and then sat me back on the bed.

As I tried to regain my breath, I looked at him. He gazed back at me and said, "You know what you must do."

There was a long silence. Suddenly everything finally reached the reverse. This man—whom I had hated for so long, whom I had held ultimately responsible for everything that had gone wrong in my life—this man had come to try to save me. Suddenly I felt a tremendous love for him, as though I were a prodigal son returning to a father who I had disowned. And he had waited for me patiently the whole time. In the quiet, he bade me a silent goodbye: "Farewell, Aetius."

I did know what I had to do. I immediately flew to my table. The very second he left was the very second I sat down to begin writing this addition. I only have so much time before I will be executed. But all the same…I have so much time now!

Suddenly the world has grown clearer. I have at least five days to live with this new perspective. What an eternity of minutes! I must cherish each one that I have.

And that was when I started writing this part. I offer you my sincere sorrow as well…if only I could take back what I had said. But I think that…it adds context. I realize now, that the whole reason I had written my story was just to get to this point. I had to get to where I am now. I pray that you will forgive me for taking your trust and then betraying you. I hope you will accept my apology…there is only so much I can do.

There is only one more thing I will beg of you: please remember my story. Remember what happened to me. Do not let yourself ever fall into the trap that I have. Do not trifle with the dark side, for it will snare you and you will not even know it. It is a roaming lion, seeking whom it may devour. Do not allow a moment of your life to be corrupted by its deceitful embrace. It will only destroy.

Not a second goes by that I do not wish I could undo everything. I cannot. I can only ask that everyone forgive me. I would throw myself at Kalkannis's feet and beg him. I would find Theodoric and ask him to forgive me for compromising the revolution he worked so hard to sustain, for abusing his people. I would ask all these people I killed to forgive me…I was a man possessed. I was not in my right mind. I was overcome with the dark side…and I didn't even _know_ it!

And lastly…I would beg Elyana's forgiveness. It is because of me that such a promising young life had been cut short. I would give my own life away if I knew it meant she could live again. But…the happy thing is that I know she has forgiven me. I can only pray the others would too…

My time is short…but soon I will be reunited with her again. Long did I fear death…long did I hesitate to look upon it. But now that I see the true nature of light and dark…now that I see my own true nature…I look upon it without fear. Now I see through a glass darkly, but soon face to face. It brings me great hope. It is so overwhelming… I think—

[_I, Gamaliel, Grandmaster of the Order, have preserved this book and put it in the Archives. I make no apologies for his representation of me in the story, and I can say with certainty that final conversation between us is accurate. Aetius himself has finally succumbed to that illness he contracted during the bombing of Doliani. His head fell on his parchment, and has smudged out the words after "think." I do not know what was written there._

_Now, you who have read this tale—no doubt your mind has been filled with questions. I myself have a hard time coming to grips with the things I have read in this story. But I charge you; never forget what you have seen. We must always remember the tale of Aetius Glendower, lest we all succumb to the entreaties of evil. We must tread cautiously, and we must never forget to hope in the light—the only thing that can sustain us. _

_We, as an Order, must learn from Aetius's book. We must rethink our teachings and our tactics. We must endeavor to prevent this from ever happening again. And lastly, we must reconsider our approach to the love question. Clearly it is not as black and white as we had previously thought. This, in light of all the horrifying complications of this piece, seems to be what he had most desired._

_We must never forget this. And we __**must **__learn from it._

—_**Vasilei Gamaliel, year 21481 (**__**3519 BBY**__**)]**_


	16. Author's Notes

Hey everyone! I have one last update to make and then I'll be finished with this thing. I enjoyed writing the end notes for my previous story, so I figured I'd do it again. …yeah. :P Anyway, I have to thank all of you who read and reviewed. That is the main reason for writing this. So, without further ado.

First of all, **Gwendolyn Rogan**, **The Outlander**, **Captin Azza**, and **Master1795 **get special thanks for their frequent reviews and very helpful feedback. Only Master seems to have made it to the end, so I especially thank him for sticking out through this whole thing. Although it sounds rather lame to say, reviews are really the main thing that keeps an author going. Even if the hits pile up, we don't really know what to think of the story of if anyone really has any opinions about it unless they review. So it's always awesome to get some. Even if it is somewhat selfish. I have to thank several others for their reviews as well, **MPK**, **Johnswinona**, **ZoharKnight**, **runwild2012**, **East Coast Ryder**, and **RevansRubber Duck Darth Nimble. **You've all made this worth it, so I sincerely thank you! You guys are what makes this fun. Otherwise writing would just be a boring, solitary activity without as much excitement. So really, _thank you_.

I have to also thank my beta **Lord Valentai**, who helped me especially with the early going of this piece and pointed out my numerous spelling and grammatical mistakes. You rock, man. As always, the story would not have been completed without you.

Lastly, I must thank **Gipper 40**, who not only reviewed every single chapter and gave valuable insight, he also helped come up with several major plot points. Specifically the war part. The decision to invade Muunilinst and to abscond with the weapons as a retaliatory threat were his ideas, and so I am deeply indebted to him for them. Gipper has a very shrewd political mind and a good understanding of the way politics, economics, and philosophy works, so his help was priceless. If any of you are interested, he is currently writing his own post-Kotor story called **The Prodigal Knight**. It's a story about Revan and his journey into the Unknown Regions, a synthesis between Kotor 1 and 2, and a wrapup of the whole saga. It also sticks very close to canon, with a male Revan, female Exile, and so on. Many of you might like it, so be sure to check it out!

As for **Hang Me**, it was an idea that was born during the middle of my first giant story: TWOG. I let it incubate for months before starting it, so I had a lot of time to work out what to write. I wanted, after a conversation I had had with Gipper and several others, to try give a convincing portrayal of a Sith. The ones in the games I found were less than inspiring. They were generally of the "I'm evil just to be evil" variety of villains, and their ideas seemed rather…lame. So, I tried to take as many stereotypically "Sith" things as possible and put a spin on them so that it would seem probable. I can't really recall how exactly the whole plot came together, but by the time I wrote the first chapter I knew pretty much how the whole story was going to go (except the war). It was a strange process, and though I can't really explain it, I do know where my influences came from.

An anonymous reviewer correctly pointed that this story follows CS Lewis's novel _**Till We Have Faces **_very closely in structure. I love Lewis's work, and as I was thinking of Aetius's story, I decided that formatting his tale the same way that that novel was structured would be the best way to do it. That way Aetius would be free in first person to spin everything the way he wanted, but the revelation could come at the end that he was seriously mistaken. Although the structure is the same, the plots, characters (aside from a few homages), and events are all original. Essentially, the stories would be almost nothing alike were it not for the last two chapters.

I am not a very creative person, to be sure, so I chose to stick very closely with the _**Faces **_ending for my story. I read and reread it something like four times, I think, trying to get everything down. I do not have the way with words that Lewis did, so I borrowed several phrases and events that he used in the ending of his novel. Such examples are the questions about the Jedi's "answer", the dream about the words falling off of the page, and the finishing of the book by a separate person after the protagonist died midsentence. That call came from _**Till We Have Faces**_, which remains one of the most unique and thoughtful novels I've ever read.

In terms of other influences, I also owe a lot to Dostoevsky's brooding sociopath Raskolnikov (the protagonist of _**Crime and Punishment**_) as an inspiration for Aetius. They share similar characteristics, although Aetius is nowhere near as good a portrayal of the guilty man as Raskolnikov was.

Anyway, those were the predominant sources of inspiration. I definitely want to give credit to these great authors, and I definitely don't want to pass off any of their ideas and philosophies as my own.

That's enough of that, though. Overall, this was actually a very tough story to write. I was really sort of relieved when it was over. It was not as fun or even really as enjoyable as other things have been. That's not to say that I don't like the story, I do, but it was trying. I think this mostly has to do with doing the whole thing through first person. And not only that, but through the eyes of a madman. What made this story challenging was that it involved, essentially, lying to the reader in almost every chapter. It's strange to try to occupy the mind of a psychopathic murderer, and I'm not sure it's something I'd be keen on doing again.

Gipper mentioned in his review that this was a religious story, and he would be right. Religious themes, I think, are the only things really worth writing about—regardless of what worldview you have. What better questions are there to tackle? I don't think there are any. Anyway, the main theme of the story can be traced to a passage from the Apostle Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians. "For now we see _**through a glass, darkly**_; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

Figured I'd cite that here so I'm not plagiarizing. :P But regardless, this is the major theme of the story. The conception of distorted reality, incomplete knowledge, and the redemptive power of faith, hope, and love (especially) are essentially the touchstones of Aetius's mad memoirs. And I think they all come to a head in the last chapter. But to talk about it that way makes it sound like I've written some sort of philosophical treatise, which I haven't. :P I'll stop now while I'm ahead!

Well, to conclude, I hope you all enjoyed the story. But mostly, I thank you all for your support. Thanks everyone! You're all awesome…ular!


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